Whatever You Like
by a-shrug-and-a-half
Summary: Lena never would've expected that singing karaoke on Winn Shott's birthday would ultimately land her a date with Supergirl but that's exactly what happened. This is that (convoluted) story.
1. Karaoke

**_NOTE::_ The awesome catpats31 helpfully alerted me to a copyright violation that I really should have thought about before I posted this but oops, stupid moment haha. The offending lyrics have been removed and replaced with placeholders until I can be bothered to go back and make this flow without them (which will probably be never, btw). In the mean time, if you want to know what's being sung, go look at the lyrics on a website with the appropriate copyright permissions lol. This is why you don't skim read the content guidelines, kids!**

* * *

 **A/N: So I was reading a fic that mentioned Alex and Kara having a choreographed routine to Bye Bye Bye and then another that mentioned an alien karaoke bar (I'm trying to hunt down the exact ones so they can be appropriately credited for the inspiration) and then I was listening to Anya Marina's cover of Whatever You Like by T.I. and well... this happened. It's crack-y and stupid but I couldn't get it out of my head so here we are. Apologies in advance for the mess that follows.**

 **I've vaguely edited it but I'm sure some mistakes slipped through, don't kill me for it. Apologies to all the Americans out there but I just couldn't do it so you're stuck with British English. Except for mom. I lowered myself to mom.**

 **All the usual disclaimers apply, I don't anything blah blah blah.**

* * *

"You could ah... just sing _the_ song. I checked, they have it," chimed in Samantha from across the table and Lena found herself regretting every life decision that had lead her to this moment.

She could go back 10 years to that night in Boston and regret ever being in the same goddamn karaoke bar as Sam when she was so upset at Lillian that she just wanted to get sloshed and laid. But then, she might not have such an excellently competent acting CEO to look after L-Corp while she got to grips with owning a media empire she had no idea how to run. Plus, the sex was fantastic so no, she couldn't actually regret that night.

She could regret the aforementioned media empire. If she didn't have that, she wouldn't need an acting CEO and she could go back to comfortably regretting her drunken, musical seduction. Unfortunately though, no matter how much she may publicly protest, she had in fact bought Catco for Kara. It hadn't technically been a favour because Kara hadn't technically asked her to buy it but she had asked her to talk to Edge and when that semi-sentient snotrag had predictably failed to listen, Lena had taken matters into her own hands, or rather, her own wallet.

Lena was a Luthor, and as a Luthor she was not one to leap blindly into ventures for which she was radically unprepared except in this case where she'd jumped in with all 750 million feet first. And why? Because she couldn't bear even the thought of the look of devastation that would cross Kara's face if Edge pulled off his takeover. Protecting the sanctity of the free press from a man hell-bent on twisting it for his own gain was a nice bonus but what Lena was really most interested in was making Kara smile. Which she did, once the shock of Lena's somewhat tentative confession had worn off. She had beamed that megawatt smile which could power the electrical grid of the whole western seaboard if only Lena could devise a method to harness it and the CEO's heart had clenched painfully inside her chest for reasons she preferred to ignore. Lena could never regret making Kara smile like that so she'd have to choose something else.

She could regret ever agreeing to grace Winn Schott's birthday gathering with her presence but the "FBI" agent (Lena was almost offended that they insisted on maintaining these ridiculous excuses when she'd figured out the DEO months ago) wasn't as dim as he might first appear, instead having the presence of mind to enlist Kara to deliver the invitation. Kara herself might be oblivious to Lena's minor infatuation problem (if she was honest it was a major infatuation problem and she had no idea how Kara hadn't noticed since Lena had literally _filled_ her office with flowers) but the nerdy little man Lena had bonded with slightly at the Danvers' game nights did not share Kara's cluelessness. Agent Schott showed no qualms about ruthlessly exploiting her pathological inability to turn the younger Danvers down and when Kara had come bouncing into her office all ponytail, pastel sweater and joy there was never a chance Lena was going to say no. Saying yes had landed her here, in a dingy, undoubtedly unsanitary alien bar down an alley off 5th on Karaoke Thursday, but Kara had smiled that smile and clapped her hands together like an overexcited baby seal and it was agonisingly adorable. Lena could never regret bearing witness to that sight so that left her shit out of regret options.

So it turned out Lena couldn't genuinely regret any of the decisions that had resulted in her current predicament but she could still curse all the gods she didn't believe in for putting her in this position.

Mr Olsen, interestingly enough, had opened proceedings with a highly amusing rendition of Mariah Carey's 'Fantasy' in his deep baritone before the Danvers sisters took the stage for a ...Baby One More Time duet complete with choreography perfected over hours of practice in their shared teenage bedroom. Kara was solidly decent but Alex, bless her, was completely atrocious. And loud. Lena couldn't be sure how much of the vocal shortcoming was down to a natural lack of talent and how much was down to the already considerable volume of alcohol Alex had consumed (her post break-up drinking was still going strong) but either way it had been trying on the ears. Winn had subjected them all to his best Charlie Puth impression which wasn't particularly good but at least it was a substantial improvement on Alex's Britney. Sam had broken out a viable impression of Pat Benatar with Hit Me With Your Best Shot and as soon as she returned to their table Lena felt all eyes turn to her.

"So Lena..." began Winn, resting his chin in his palms with his fingers on his cheeks in a failed attempt to look cherubic.

"You're up," finished Alex who was positively tickled by the prospect of forcing Lena Luthor into karaoke.

"I agreed to attend, I did not agree to participate," Lena tried, knowing full well it wasn't going to get her anywhere.

"Participation was implicit in the invitation," countered Kara and Lena quirked an eyebrow at the argument.

"I don't think that would be defensible as a binding contract in court."

"Are you threatening to sue me to get out of karaoke?"

"Maybe."

And that's where Sam came in. As soon as those fateful words started falling out of her mouth, Lena glared at her with a viciousness that had made many-a man in the boardroom cower but Sam was undeterred. She smirked at her kind-of boss as the supposedly secret superfriends latched on to that tidbit of information.

"Ooooh, you've got a song? I wanna hear the song!" That was Winn.

"You're not getting away now. Get your ass on stage Luthor." That was Alex.

"This is going to be classic." That was James, said with a belly-laugh into his beer.

Lena shifted her gaze to Kara, her entire face pleading for her best friend to save her but the reporter's mouth just turned up at the edges as she pointed at the front of the room and ordered, "go."

Lena huffed out a long-suffering sigh and took an inappropriately large gulp of her scotch before snagging her blazer off the back of her chair and slipping it onto her shoulders as she stepped away from the safety of their table. She made it four feet before she spun back around to Winn.

"If I do this I'm not buying you a Christmas present."

"That's fine, it's worth it," he replied litlingly with a barely suppressed giggle.

"I'm literally the second richest woman in National City, you'd be missing out."

That did give him pause but after a moment or two of contemplation Lena received the answer she'd been dreading.

"Nope, you still gotta sing."

Her face twisted into a grimace and Lena sighed again before turning on her very expensive heels and striding towards the stage. She could hear Alex and Sam hooting and hollering at her from a distance but she abjectly ignored them as she skirted around the edge of the crowd with her chin up and her back rod-straight. She may be emotionally slouched but she wouldn't let that impact her impeccable posture, especially not in public. She took her place as next in line and stood with her hands on her hips as a tipsy Grenolian finished his enthusiastic interpretation of I Wanna Dance With Somebody.

Back in the middle of the room Alex leaned across Kara to stage whisper conspiratorially at Sam.

"How much for the story of how you know Luthor's sung karaoke before?"

"Ha ha ha," Sam fake laughed. "Millions."

"Oh come on, it can't be that good," Alex complained and Sam fixed her with a stare.

"It is. Plus, Lena would fire me at best and kill me at worst so I deserve compensation."

"The D- erm, FBI doesn't pay me well enough for that," Alex whined and Kara rolled her eyes behind her glasses. The DEO didn't pay Supergirl at all.

"I guess it'll have to remain a mystery then," Sam mocked as though it was a tragedy.

"Can I haggle you down? Say a grand?" Alex bargained and Sam narrowed her eyes.

"Would you pay me a grand?"

"Would you accept a grand?"

"Absolutely not."

Alex groaned and Kara shook her head at her sister's antics, smug in her knowledge that if she asked nicely enough she would absolutely get the details out of Lena.

A hush fell over the official and unofficial Superfriends as Lena took to the stage after the Grenolian staggered off it. The anticipation was almost palpable. Alex tapped out a little drum roll and Kara determinedly didn't think about how attractive her best friend looked bathed in performance lighting (it was super hot).

Lena had taken a deep breath before ascending the stairs because if she was doing this she was going to do it properly. She found herself abundantly grateful for the Dutch courage flowing through her system as she set up with her eyes shut, one hand cradling the mic and the other gripping the stand. Her last thought before the music dropped was that she hoped nobody filmed this and uploaded it to Twitter.

 _[Lyrics line 1-4]_

Lena's head swayed from side to side as she crooned, her lips mere millimetres from the microphone before her eyes flashed open.

 _[Line 5]_

Kara choked on her own tongue.

 _[Line 6-8]_

The Kryptonian tried to cover up her spluttering by taking a giant swig of her coke, eyes glued to the CEO who was shrugging off her blazer and draping it over the mic stand.

 _[Line 9-10]_

As soon as Kara swallowed her drink her mouth was immediately bone dry again, her jaw gormlessly hanging open slightly.

 _[Line 11-12]_

"Five million dollar home? Try 750 million dollar business," Sam scoffed quietly and Alex side-eyed her quizzically while Kara, despite the whole super-hearing thing, was too transfixed to have picked it up.

 _[Line 13-14]_

The Luthor pulled the mic out of the stand and strutted slowly across the front of the stage towards the steps.

You want it, I got it, go get it, I'll buy it

Tell them other broke brothers "be quiet!"

"Is it hotter because she really is really really rich?" Winn mused and James looked at him judgmentally while Lena descended the stairs to whistles from the other bar patrons.

 _[Line 15-18]_

A monster greener than kryptonite clawed at Kara's gut as Lena weaved her way through the heaving crowd, trailing her hands over arms, backs, and shoulders, stopping on occasion to serenade any woman who particularly caught her attention.

 _[Line 19-20]_

It took all of Kara's self control not to shatter the glass in her hand.

 _[Line 21-22]_

Sam had to bite back a thousand snarky and suggestive comments as she watched Kara's jaw work furiously as the reporter watched Lena wrap herself around a tall, scantily clad Almeracian woman.

 _[Line 23-24]_

Lena moved on to a woman in full leather biker kit and Sam barely managed to restrain her laugh at the jealously rolling off Kara in waves. Those two really needed to get their shit together.

 _[Line 25-26]_

The dark-haired CEO broke out of the mini mosh pit that had formed at the front of the room and started stalking towards her group in the middle of the bar.

 _[Line 27-28]_

"She's good," nodded Alex as Lena raked her eyes left to right and back again, lingering a little longer on Kara than anyone else.

 _[Line 29-30]_

"You're telling me," said Sam, knowing that she was kicking the Alex Danvers hornet's nest.

 _[Line 31-32]_

Alex's responding interrogation had to be postponed when Lena arrived and draped her arm around Sam's shoulder. Kara had to avert her gaze because, as much as it was tempting, she didn't actually want to accidentally (on purpose) laser eyes Lena's other closest friend.

 _[Line 33-34]_

The Luthor took a couple of steps to the right and turned to stand with her back to Kara, singing to the back of bar. If anyone ever asked she'd blame what happened next on the scotch. She spun around and bent over so her mouth was just an inch from the reporter's left ear.

 _[Line 35-36]_

Kara had never been more appreciative of dim lighting than in that moment when she was sure she flushed the same colour as her cape, and let's just say her face wasn't the only part of her body flooded with heat.

 _[Line 37-38]_

Kara's pulse thrummed double time and the feeling of Lena's breath on her neck made her spine (among other places) tingle. Then almost as soon as she had arrived, Lena was gone.

 _[Line 39-42]_

The CEO swaggered away back towards the front of the room and Kara nearly growled her disapproval.

 _[Line 43-44]_

As Lena walked away Kara totally wasn't staring at how good her best friend's ass looked in her slim fit black slacks (that's a lie, she totally was).

 _[Line 45-46]_

Lena made it back to the stage and clicked the mic back into the stand, ignoring her blazer that had fallen to the floor at some point in the last three minutes.

 _[Line 47-51]_

Lena was staring in Kara's general direction and it was enough to make the Kryptonian feel like her skin was on fire even though she was literally fireproof.

 _[Line 52-55]_

"Wait, what do you mean 'tell me about it'" Alex hissed, remembering Sam's throwaway comment.

"I thought we clarified you're not rich enough to afford that intel?" Sam shot back.

Agent Danvers attempted her trademark law enforcement scowl but she was drunk enough that it came out like a puppy trying to be tough rather than the terrifying Rottweiler she achieved sober.

 _[Line 56-58]_

Lena finished to raucous applause and dropped into a bow as she bent over to hook her finger into the collar of her blazer to rescue it from the scummy floor. She swung the jacket over her right shoulder and languidly wandered off the stage exuding effortlessly sexy high class cool. The CEO was meandering towards her group when she was intercepted by the nearly naked Almeracian from earlier. Alex should arrest her for public indecency Kara thought thunderously as she watched the toweringly tall alien flirt shamelessly.

The Kryptonian was endlessly glad that Sam was too busy laughing at Alex and Alex was too busy throwing peanuts at her for it for either of them to hear the crack of Kara snapping the footrest of her stool. In her defence, the Almeracian had stroked her hand across Lena's lower back and Lena had smiled suggestively at her! How was Kara supposed to react?!

There was a nagging know-it-all voice that sounded just like Maggie in the back of her mind giving her answers she wasn't asking for. 'You know Little Danvers,' it said, 'most people don't have a problem with their chronically shut-in best friend getting some action.' There was truth to that which Kara wasn't ready to examine so she settled on cursing Detective Sawyer for being so freaking insightful even when she wasn't around.

Winn had been observing the scene playing out in front of him with fascination but it wasn't until he saw Lena wink at her new lady friend that something clicked.

"Hold on, is she... is she..." Winn trailed off and impotently waved his arm at Lena's flirt-fest.

"Gay?" supplied Sam and four sets of wide eyes turned on her. The statement even shocked Kara enough to tear her out of the rage haze that had been induced by Lena winking like that at somebody who wasn't her.

"Are you seriously telling me none of you knew?" L-Corp's acting CEO asked incredulously, staring at them all like they were stupid.

"Fuck!" Alex muttered loudly and eight slightly different wide eyes shifted to her.

"I owe Maggie 75 bucks," Alex explained sullenly, deliberately knocking over her empty beer glass in annoyance.

"What for exactly?"

The unexpected sound of Lena's amused voice made both Danvers sisters jump. Nobody had noticed her extract herself from the Almeracian until she inserted herself into this now embarrassing conversation. Neither Danvers could look at her as the CEO slid herself onto her stool and took a sip of her scotch. Kara became very interested in a loose thread on the cuff of her cardigan because she was terrified of the wildly inappropriate things that might fall out of her mouth if she caught Lena's gaze. Alex meanwhile decided she must collect all the peanuts she'd scattered across the table in case it would help her escape a Luthor grilling.

The awkward silence dragged on for a few seconds before a smirking Sam cracked and broke into fits of giggles.

"Yes?" Lena asked pointedly and Alex just wanted the ground to open up and swallow her whole.

"Alex and Maggie were betting on your lesbianism," Sam wheezed out between waves of laughter and Lena rolled her eyes because of course they were. Those two would bet on whether the sun was going to rise if they could. Alex had run out of peanuts to put back in the bowl so she was stuffing them into her mouth fistfuls at a time instead.

"Let me guess, Alex lost," Lena drawled after another sip of scotch, mirth colouring the edges of her voice. Kara stayed intently absorbed in picking at her cardigan so she didn't have to think about what that tone did to her.

"It's not my fault Maggie has the world's best gaydar," Alex said defensively, spraying peanut crumbs across the table.

"And you still bet against her?" Lena challenged as she wiped peanut bits off the front of her red blouse with a wince.

"I was so sure I was right this time, I mean... look at you."

Lena stared at the elder Danvers pityingly before she went for kill.

"Maggie told me your gaydar was bad but it truly is atrocious isn't it? Remind me again how someone so unobservant is an FBI agent?"

"She's not really an... investigative kind of agent. Observation isn't in her job description." Kara couldn't help herself.

"Okay, how about everyone lay off me, huh?" Alex said once she'd gulped down her next handful of peanuts, pretending to be wounded. "And could we please talk about something other than my very recently ex-girlfriend?"

Kara, ever the superhero, came to her sister's rescue.

"Did you know James likes to hum Cher when he reviews Catco proofs? He does a great Woman's World."

* * *

There were downsides to having friends with super-hearing James thought on stage, half way through Woman's World's second chorus as he saw Winn and Alex cracking up.

* * *

The rest of the night passed in a blur of questionable singing and alcohol but the lack of Aldebaran rum meant that when Kara crashed into her bed at 2am, after a minor detour to stop a mugging, she was dead sober. Dead sober and unable to think of anything other than the feeling of Lena's breath on her neck and the sound Lena's voice in her ear and the sight of Lena's butt in those pants and...

Oh Rao.


	2. The Immediate Aftermath

**A/N: So I got inspired to write another chapter of this (blame QTdrum).**

 **I own nothing except all of the mistakes.**

* * *

Lena largely forgot about the Karaoke Thursday debacle as soon as it was over. She spent Friday mired in a bog of paperwork as she tried to pull together a proposal for CatCo advertisers before she had to fly out to Metropolis. There were some issues at L-Corp's Metropolis branch that needed to be addressed in person and Lena took the assignment so Sam didn't have to sacrifice her weekend with Ruby.

By the time she crashed onto her private jet at 11pm, running an hour and half late, she was exhausted and she passed out before she even reclined her seat. That was a mistake because when the plane landed 5 hours later she woke up with a killer crick in her neck and, thanks to the time difference, a meeting in 45 minutes. It was just long enough to make herself presentable, scull some coffee and pop a couple of Tylenol to head off her impending headache.

The weekend rushed past in a haze of appointments, reports and trouble-shooting. She didn't finish work on Saturday until well after midnight and then she was up again at 6:30am on Sunday to spend another day going like the clappers. She barely had enough spare seconds to flick a reply or two to all of Kara's enquiries about whether she was eating enough.

(She'd done her best to squeeze in three meals a day but life had been hectic - not that she told Kara that).

By the time she collapsed onto her jet on Sunday evening she felt like the living dead but at least Metropolis operations were back on track.

The time difference was a lot kinder flying back to National City (and she'd remembered to lie down before she slept) so she actually got a reasonable amount of decent quality rest on Sunday night. That meant that when she rocked up at CatCo at 8:30am on Monday morning she almost felt like a functioning human being and it was a nice change.

* * *

Kara, on the other hand, hadn't stopped thinking about Karaoke Thursday all weekend. She was secretly relieved that Lena spent Friday locked away in her temporary office because strikingly lurid thoughts kept popping into Kara's head and she didn't know how she could possibly look the other woman in the eye if they came face-to-face.

It happened even in the most inappropriate of moments and frankly, it became a safety hazard. At one point Supergirl had to pull a 5g turn to avoid smashing into a downtown high-rise because she got distracted fantasising about ravishing Lena in the CatCo executive elevator.

She was trying to concentrate on the tasks she actually had at hand but her brain wasn't following her instructions. Instead, it threw up a highlight reel of potential sexual situations she'd love to find herself in with her best friend who was also now literally her boss. It got so graphic at times that she worried she was somehow invading Lena's privacy within the confines of her own mind.

She was honestly shocked at herself. She never knew she was capable of such thoughts (or such creativity) and she kind of wondered whether this was what it was like to be a teenage boy.

Another, related problem was that this new habit of hers made it increasingly difficult to maintain her inner narrative that she only had strong platonic feelings for a certain Luthor. Kara did know that nobody on Krypton or on Earth imagined giving multiple orgasms to someone they just wanted to be friends with. Her nagging Maggie voice had lots of opinions on the matter that it was very eager to share.

 _'If you're dreaming of having sex with her, you probably want to have sex with her.'_

 _'Well that's definitely not something that just besties would do.'_

 _'Are you really sure you're straight? Cos honey, straight girls don't think like this.'_

The voice's insistence (and its accuracy) was hard to ignore but she tried anyway.

The benefit of Lena being away for the weekend though was that Kara could pretend to be totally normal over text without actually having to be normal. Unfortunately, that reprieve was due to end and, as she dragged herself out of bed on Monday morning, she had no idea how she was going to survive the day.

* * *

Lena mainlined her second coffee of the day (black, double shot) and then strode into Mr. Olsen's office for the regular morning editorial meeting with a nice caffeine buzz vibrating in her veins. That was as good as her work day got.

Things started rapidly going south as soon as Kara trailed into the room behind Snapper and promptly proceeded to studiously look everywhere but at Lena. Even when asked a direct question, the reporter answered with her eyes focused a foot above Lena's head.

The situation didn't improve as the day wore on. Lena stopped by the reporter's cubicle because she had a source that would be useful for Kara's article on clerical issues with the municipal elections and the blonde startled like she'd been jabbed with a cattle prod. She then jumped out of her chair, grabbed the bit of paper out of Lena's hands and raced off to the elevators like her hair was on fire. She fumbled her way through a very unconvincing excuse about an urgent dentist appointment she just remembered but Lena wasn't stupid. Normally you need money to pay for dental treatment and Kara had left her bag (wallet and all) tucked under her desk. She hadn't even taken her phone. Plus, Lena was pretty sure that no dentist on Earth would be able to provide useful oral healthcare to a Kryptonian, not that Kara knew that she knew.

At first she assumed that the reporter must've heard some emergency but when no news trickled in about Supergirl sightings, Lena was bright enough to realise that Kara had really just been running away from her.

The final nail in the coffin came in the early afternoon. Lena walked into the bullpen looking for Miss. Teschmacher and spotted Kara in her peripheral vision. The reporter clearly didn't realise she was visible because, as soon as she noticed Lena's arrival, she moved slightly faster than was humanly possible and shut herself in a supply closet. If there had been any doubt that Kara was being weird today, it was now thoroughly gone.

A bothersome thought that had been itching at the back of her mind since the morning became more tenacious as rest of the day passed by. By the time Lena was shut in her office, trawling through CatCo's latest financials, it was so loud that she was struggling to ignore it. She tried to stuff it in a box to deal with later so she could finish her goddamn work and go home, but she couldn't get an airtight seal and the thought was like an octopus - it only needed the smallest gap to escape. And so it rampaged around, bouncing off the walls of her skull and generally wreaking havoc as she failed to make any meaningful progress on her financial review.

She didn't want to think the worst of Kara but all the evidence was pointing in a particular direction and Lena was suddenly remembering why exactly she'd been keeping the whole gay business under wraps. Being out and proud (or out and not proud as the case usually was) never had worked out particularly well for her.

There was that time she and Agnes Bradbury got caught kissing behind the caretaker's cottage at St. Cuthbert's College for Girls during the second of the four years Lena spent exiled to the Irish boarding school. Agnes had understandably thrown Lena under the bus to save herself from the wrath of her devout and conservative Catholic family but the fact it was understandable didn't make spending the next two and a half years as the college's lesbian pariah any easier to handle. Being the unloved Luthor had already been enough social baggage.

She didn't even want to mention the stink Lillian made when she found out.

Then there was the time Lena slipped up and revealed herself during an angry debate on Don't Ask, Don't Tell after a class for the sociology paper she took during undergrad.

(She enrolled in the course partly out of interest and partly to piss her mother off. It was a roaring success and Lillian muttered darkly about Lena wasting her time on humanities every time they saw each other for months.)

That accident ended with the word dyke being spray-painted in block capitals across her car in the student lot, only the culprit was clearly lacking in the intellectual department because they spelled it DIKE. There was also that rumour which spread faster than tuberculosis in overcrowded housing. Apparently she tried to coerce Carly Lineker into bed when the communications major was off-her-face drunk. Yeah fucking right, but the damage was done. She was surrounded by ostentatiously empty seats in every lecture for the rest of the semester. Not that she liked any of the assholes in the first place, but still, it was the principle that hurt.

And now there was this. Of course Kara had her gay sister that she didn't seem to have a problem with but the only unusual thing that had happened in their friendship in the last five days was the outed-by-karaoke incident. On Thursday morning Kara had exuberantly hugged her without hesitation after news came through that CatCo was pulling record numbers in the 18-34 demographic. On Thursday night there was the aforementioned karaoke fiasco and now, the next time Lena saw her, Kara was literally hiding in a closet to avoid her.

(The CEO definitely didn't miss the irony).

She really, really didn't want to think the worst, but it was just the most obvious explanation.

It was also a distractingly upsetting explanation and after an hour of trying and failing to ignore it so she could actually do her job, she gave up. She flicked her pen at her desk in a small attempt to ease some of her frustration and the plastic ballpoint she'd stolen from IT went skittering across the cheap laminate surface until it tipped off the edge and clattered onto the floor. There was probably a metaphor in there somewhere but Lena couldn't be bothered finding it. She also really couldn't be bothered reading another page explaining why CatCo's accounting department sometimes deviated from using GAAP measures. She resigned herself to a late night tomorrow finishing the work she was abdicating from tonight and packed up her belongings before fleeing from the building. She needed wine.

* * *

Kara's day had been harrowing. She was massively grateful that nobody needed Supergirl as she got home and crumpled face down onto her couch because she just couldn't. It had been 8 hours of trying to work with Lena and it had been a complete, total, abject disaster. She'd ended up hiding in a closet _twice._

 _'How fitting'_ the Maggie voice said and Kara hit herself not so gently over the head with a cushion to make it go away.

The editorial meeting had been tortuous. She had to be in Lena's immediate vicinity and pretend to be a competent professional. What a nightmare.

Then there was the dental debacle. She didn't mean to freak out and run away but then Lena was there, talking to her, one-on-one, without anybody else there to dilute the attention and she got overwhelmed, okay?

But seriously, the dentist? In the middle of a work day? Really?

She couldn't ever tell Alex. Her sister was already convinced she was a terrible liar and Kara didn't need to give her any more ammunition.

She'd ended up hiding in the stationery cupboard on level 19 for an hour because absolutely nobody ever went in there. Rao, did she get bored though. She didn't even have her phone and the sales department was incredibly dreary to eavesdrop on. Then, of course, she got her ass handed to her by Snapper when she got back for scheduling personal matters during work hours. That was fun.

(It was not fun.)

When Lena swaggered into the bullpen at 2pm looking all hot and authoritative, Kara just couldn't do it again. So yes, she used super-speed in a categorically inappropriate situation to zip over to the supply closet and stuff herself into the claustrophobically small bottom shelf. She stayed until she heard the CEO leave and when she finally emerged Joan from accounting gave her a very odd look.

Thank god she didn't see Lena again before she clocked off because she didn't want to think of what humiliating thing she would've done next.

It was been one, single day and she was already an utter mess. She didn't know if she could make it through the week without getting fired, or at least demoted. Maybe she should just quit, Kara thought, as she groaned dramatically and rolled heavily onto her back to stare at the ceiling.

She'd been counting the specks of mould dotted across the white paint for nearly ten minutes when she got an idea. A terrible, bad, no good, rotten idea but it was also irresistibly tempting. She heaved herself off the couch with another groan and dragged herself across her apartment to rummage her phone out of her bag.

She finally found it right at the bottom and sent detritus flying everywhere when she yanked the device out a little too enthusiastically. She pulled up the relevant message thread and tapped out her text, then hesitated over the send button before throwing caution to wind.

 _6:24pm  
_ I'm sorry. I really shouldn't be doing this but can I ask you a question? **[Kara]**

She'd barely resettled in her wallowing position when the ding that signalled a reply rang out.

 _6:26pm  
_ **[Mags]** Don't be stupid. You're family little danvers and that doesn't change cos alex and i broke up. Ask me anything

Kara leaned forward and gnawed on her bottom lip as she tried to figure out how to phrase her particular problem. She started and deleted three different messages before she decided it was a lost cause.

 _6:32pm  
_ Might be easier in person. You free? **[Kara]**

 _6:33pm  
_ **[Mags]** Meet you at zhao's on 15th in 30?

 _6:33pm  
_ Perfect **[Kara]**

Now that the reporter thought about it, copious amount of Chinese food did actually sound like exactly what she needed.

* * *

Zhao Yingying made the best steamed pork buns in all of National City and her potstickers weren't bad either. When Kara walked into the little hole in the wall restaurant she was running ten minutes late because she had to stop by a crash on the freeway to tear a car open when closest pair of NCFD jaws of life malfunctioned.

Detective Sawyer was already seated by the back wall and Kara rushed over as quickly as she could without crashing into any of the very close together tables.

(She actually banged into two).

"Sorry I'm late," she apologised, somewhat breathlessly (from stress rather than exertion). "I had to... you know..."

"Don't worry about it, kid," Maggie laughed as Kara flopped into a chair. "I already ordered."

"Pork buns?"

"And potstickers and black bean beef."

"Oh I love you!"

"Ha, I know."

"Wait..." Kara asked after a pause. "What are you eating?"

None of the aforementioned food items were even vaguely vegetarian, let alone vegan.

"Oh I'm misery eating meat," the detective stated matter-of-factly. "How's Alex holding up by the way?"

"Ohhhh..." Kara stuttered. "She's okay?"

Maggie clearly wasn't buying it and Kara fidgeting with her glasses as the detective stared at her inscrutably.

"Fine!" Kara eventually conceded when the pressure got too much, throwing her hands up in surrender. "She's drinking a lot."

"Makes sense," Maggie sighed before taking a sip of her water. Kara didn't fail to notice how her hand shook slightly.

"What about you?" the reporter inquired gently. "How are you holding up? Other than the misery meat-eating."

"I'm tired," the detective admitted, and she looked it. Her skin was sallow, her eyes were slightly bloodshot the the exhaustion bags were unmissable. "Work's been busy."

"Uh huh," Kara agreed skeptically, choosing not to ask whether work had been busy or if Maggie had just been taking on obscene amounts of voluntary overtime. She already knew the answer anyway.

Their conversation was interrupted when Shuai, the youngest Zhao son, arrived with armfuls of food that sent Kara's salivary glands into overdrive. The reporter practically moaned as she bit into her first pork bun, much to Maggie's amusement, and she didn't talk again for another 5 minutes as she hoovered the equivalent of one and a half normal dinners.

"You know Little Danvers, I almost forgot what eating with you is like," Maggie said with a wry smile.

"I'm really hungry, okay?" Kara protested defensively and the detective just shook her head and turned her attention back to her black bean beef. It was the first time she'd eaten it in years and it was heaven. Speaking confidentially, she would confess that she was lying all those times she told Alex she didn't miss meat. It was delicious. Cruel, but delicious.

The problem with meeting at Zhao's was that the food was so good that it was hard to find time to talk between mouthfuls. It took another five minutes for Maggie to get around to asking what she'd been wanting to ask since the second Kara had walked into the place.

"Not that I'm not happy to just catch up," she began and the reporter looked up nervously like she could sense what was coming, "but are you ever going to tell me why you wanted to see me?"

"I just wanted to check in?" Kara tried, failing miserably to inject any conviction into the lie and Maggie blatantly laughed at her for it.

"Spare me the bullshit, kid," the detective said, laughter still playing around the edges of her voice. "Ask your question."

In response, Kara hemmed and hawed for many long moments, chasing noodles around her plate with her fork. This whole thing seemed like a much better idea back at her apartment when she wasn't actively having to try to admit this stuff out loud. She opened her mouth to start talking on three separate occasions only to snap it shut again and return to playing with her dinner.

"Spit it out Little D," Maggie demanded lightly once Kara had burned through the detective's limited supply of patience. "I don't want to have to charge you with reporting a false emergency."

"This is definitely a real emergency," the reporter grumbled under her breath before filling her mouth with potsticker to delay the inevitable by a few seconds.

"IhaveagiantcrushonmybossandIdon'tknowwhattodo."

Her desperate confession fell out in a garbled rush as soon as she swallowed her potsticker and once she was done she shoved half a pork bun in its place.

"I gonna need you to say that again. Slowly," Maggie said with a hint of a smile as Kara chewed furiously. She didn't actually need Kara to repeat herself, she just wanted to make the reporter say it again for fun. It was a little mean, sure, but at the moment she had to take whatever small joys she could get.

"I have a giant crush on my boss and I don't know what to do," Kara reiterated, hunching forward and looking twitchily from side to side as she whisper-shouted across the table. She nearly dunked the front of her cardigan in black bean sauce.

"Your Snapper boss or your Lena Luthor boss?" Maggie asked, leaning back in her chair with an air of self-satisfied smugness that the reporter didn't pick up on.

"My not-Snapper boss," Kara mumbled as she toyed with her glasses' frame and looked sheepishly at the table top.

"You finally figured it out, huh?" the detective asked almost rhetorically and Kara's head snapped up to stare at her in utter confusion.

"Do you know what the one good thing about Alex dumping me was?" Maggie continued as a bamboozled Kara just kept staring. "It meant I didn't have to spend one more fucking game night watching you two make oblivious heart eyes at each other."

"Wait... What d'you..."

"What do I mean?" the detective prompted helpfully after leaving Kara to wallow in her bewilderment for a minute.

"Yeah!" the superhero replied, suddenly sitting much straighter in her chair. "What do you mean heart eyes? What do you mean heart eyes at each other?!"

"I mean that you and Lena make heart eyes at each other. Constantly. Whenever you're in the same room there's heart eyes shooting all over the place."

Kara opened her mouth to disagree but Maggie wasn't done.

"Because you're both the 'would totally sign up for a u-haul' kind of into each other but neither of you have made a goddamn move and it's honestly been fucking painful to watch."

"You knew that I like her?!" Kara hissed in shock. "How long have you known?!"

"Literally months," the exasperated detective responded. "Kid, you're not subtle."

"Does Alex know?!"

"Fuck no," Maggie snorted. "Alex would struggle to clock a lesbian if one was sitting on her face. She needed three decades to realise she was gay, she's not going to notice her kid sister lusting after Lena Luthor-"

"I am not _lusting_ -" Kara tried to interrupt but Maggie steamrolled over the top of her.

"-or the other way around. She thought Lena was straight for Christ's sake."

"I thought Lena was straight."

"That just proves Alex's terrible gaydar is environmental, not genetic."

"My gaydar isn't terrible," a mildly offended Kara scoffed.

"Sure, kid. Whatever you say."

Kara tried desperately to come up with a witty retort but her mind kept getting stuck on something else entirely.

"Hold on... you think Lena's lusting after me?"

"Girl," Maggie's started in an intense 'duh' voice. "I know she's lusting after you. She could hardly be more obvious if she tried."

The reporter's mouth gaped open as her brain worked in overdrive to process the sounds coming in through her ears and Maggie rolled her eyes at how surprised Kara was. Both Danvers sisters would make terrible police officers. No observational skills whatsoever.

"So you're saying Lena likes me _like that_?" Kara asked to clarify, just in case she could have possibly got the wrong end of the stick.

"Oh my fucking god Kara, yes," the detective groaned, utilising a rare usage of the Kryptonian's first name for emphasis. "That woman is head over heels for you. She bought you a $750 million media empire!"

"She didn't buy that for me," the reporter retorted immediately, pointing her finger at Maggie in protest. "It was an investment."

"Did she tell you that, huh?"

"Yes..?"

"I rest my case."

"Okay, but..." Kara began, moving on to more pressing matters. "What do I do?"

Maggie very, _very_ nearly threw a potsticker at her. Kara wasn't stupid, but sometimes she was just so excruciatingly thick. The detective had to take a few deep, calming breaths before she could talk calmly.

"Ask her out."

"Ask her out where?" came Kara's questioning response and Maggie could've screamed. She didn't, but only through sheer force of will.

"Ask her out on a date," she explained instead, enunciating each word slowly.

"Oh..." Kara breathed thoughtfully. "Oh!"

"There you go."

"You think I should ask her out on a date?"

Maggie didn't know how many times Kara could echo back what she'd just said but it was getting old, fast.

"You should definitely ask her out on a date."

"Oh," Kara repeated, absently gazing off into the distance before flicking her eyes back to Maggie. "How do I do that?"

The detective released a sigh from deep within her chest. She loved the reporter dearly, but this was harder than teaching calculus to a toddler.

"Hey Lena, wanna go on a date with me? How about dinner? Tonight? Great!" she offered as an example, with sarcasm leaking into her tone, before shaking her head as she watched Kara's reaction.

The reporter rocked her head from side to side and stared at the ceiling for several seconds like she was trying to process something highly complicated before she clicked back into the conversation.

"Okay..." she started hesitantly, gnawing on the inside of her cheek. "That sounds... doable."

"Just be chill," Maggie offered softly. Kara was so visibly nervous that it was tugging on her heart strings. "She's gonna say yes."

"You promise?"

Kara was looking at her with blue eyes wide and glistening behind the lenses of her glasses and she cut a very sympathetic figure. The Kryptonian looked nearly as vulnerable as Maggie had ever seen and the tugging on her heart strings was graduating to aggressive yanking.

"I promise," the detective swore sincerely, wanting to offer her honorary sister some reassurance (in not so many words) that she wasn't going to ruin her vibe with Lena if she went for more.

Kara's face was in the middle of splitting into a smile when her expression suddenly turned serious and her head whipped around to look out the door. The sound of fire sirens was ringing in her ears, still far out of Maggie's earshot but the superhero's rapid change in demeanour was enough for the detective to figure things out.

"I'm sorry, I've got to..." Kara apologised, already half way out of her chair but Maggie waved her off.

"It's all good, kid. Ring me anytime you need girl advice, and text me about what happens with Lena," the detective said lightly as Kara packed up her belongings, before her tone turned more serious. "Just don't be a stranger, okay?"

The reporter enthusiastically nodded her agreement before spinning on her heel and sprinting out the back door into a deserted alley. The last thing she heard before she launched herself into the sky was Maggie shouting "and I better be invited to the wedding!"

* * *

Kara arrived home an hour later after saving 13 people and $7 million worth of property from a chemical fire down at the docks. She was covered in soot and stunk of smoke, general chemical toxicity and seaweed but she didn't make a beeline for the shower even though she desperately needed a wash. Instead, the first thing she did was rescue her phone from its special pouch inside her boot. She was full of confidence and conviction, buoyed by Maggie's encouragement, until she actually tapped in to Lena's message thread.

She ended up pacing back and forth across her lounge as she struggled with indecision over what she wanted to say, ignoring the ash she was tracking through her apartment.

(It would be a total bitch to clean, but that was tomorrow Kara's problem.)

It took 15 minutes and 7 deleted attempts before the reporter crafted a text she was willing to send but then it was done and she could finally go have a shower.

* * *

Lena was submerged in her bath with bubbles up to her chin, throwing back shitty (by her standards) Merlot straight from the bottle. She'd been in long enough that she'd had to top up the hot water, her extremities were wrinkled even beyond prune level and she'd been able to drink enough wine to hit positively tipsy.

Being mildly drunk in a deep tub full of water wasn't the most safety conscious decision she'd ever made but she couldn't find a fuck to give. Sam was amazing and she was doing a brilliant job with L-Corp but Lena couldn't completely let her baby go so she had essentially been running a company and half for several weeks now. It was exhausting. She couldn't remember the last time she spent an evening relaxing. So, now that she'd finally got so fed up with the tasks in her in-tray and inbox that she'd left the office before 10pm, she was going to take full advantage of the relaxation opportunity. Even if that meant combining the bath with too much alcohol.

She had slipped away into a happy sort of buzz where, for once, she wasn't really thinking of much when her phone chimed on the bathroom vanity and dragged her back to reality. She would've been pissed, except it was the beep reserved specifically for Kara.

Rather than virulently cursing whoever had the gall to disturb her brief moment of peace, she instead hauled herself out of the tub and padded over to her phone without even stopping to grab a towel. She quickly dried her hands with a face cloth before snatching the device off the edge of the sink while soapy water dripped off her body to form a puddle on the bathroom floor.

That puddle kept growing as Lena's fingerprint unlocked the screen before she opened Kara's message.

 _9:02pm  
_ **[Kara]** Hey, you up for lunch tomorrow?

* * *

 **A/N: I told myself I'd be happy to leave it at a oneshot. Then I went fine, I'll make it two. But apparently, I'm incapable of writing anything short and snappy so I guess there will have to be more.**

 **Full credit to Taoiseach MacCraith and the amazing story Her Red Light for the image of Lena, a bathtub and a wine bottle.**


	3. The First Attempt

The puddle beneath Lena was becoming a veritable pond as she stood blinking at her phone. Maybe it was the result of alcohol-induced impairment but she found herself struggling to comprehend the words splayed across her screen. They were so casual... and normal... and Kara was asking her about lunch? Like she hadn't been acting totally strange all day?

Her befuddled state meant that it took the CEO an embarrassingly long time to compose a coherent reply. So long, in fact, that her body had almost air-dried.

 _9:12pm  
_ Sorry, I'm swamped tomorrow. There's no way I'll be able to get away. Raincheck? **[Lena]**

It was true (that financial review wasn't going to finish itself) but it also wasn't what she really wanted to say. That would've been 'what the fuck was wrong with you today?' but that seemed a little blunt and tactless.

* * *

Lena was in the kitchen re-corking her Merlot (having finally left the bathroom and cladded herself in pyjamas) when Kara's next text pinged through.

 _9:21pm_ **  
** **[Kara]** You still have to eat when you're busy

The CEO shook her head affectionately as she leaned forward and propped herself up with her elbows on the kitchen bench, phone cradled in her hands. Kara's overblown concern over her eating habits was simultaneously endearing and slightly annoying.

 _9:23pm  
_ Haha, I am aware of that **[Lena]**

She was in the middle of typing a quick follow up when a reply popped through.

 _9:24pm  
_ **[Kara]** Great! I'll bring food to your office then?

The woman was incorrigible.

 _9:25pm_  
I won't be the best company. I'll probably have to work through **[Lena]**

 _9:27pm  
_ **[Kara]** We'll cross that bridge when we come to it

 _9:27pm  
_ **[Kara]** You've gotta take a break sometime, right?

 _9:29pm_  
Mmmm... **[Lena]**

 _9:30pm  
_ **[Kara]** You're such a workaholic

 _9:30pm  
_ Guilty as charged **[Lena]**

 _9:31pm  
_ **[Kara]** We're gonna work on that

 _9:32pm  
_ **[Kara]** When is good for you?

 _9:34pm  
_ For lunch? About 1. For working on the workaholism? Never **[Lena]**

The CEO could practically feel the judgement radiating off the three dots that flickered ominously across her screen.

 _9:37pm  
_ **[Kara]** You're terrible

 _9:37pm  
_ **[Kara]** I'll see you at one

 _9:38pm  
_ Looking forward to it **[Lena]**

 _9:39pm  
_ **[Kara]** Don't forget to go to bed

 _9:41pm  
_ Yes mom **[Lena]**

Not that Lillian (or Lionel for that matter) had ever shown any concern over her sleeping habits.

Speaking of sleep, Lena thought as she yawned involuntarily, it was sounding like a really great idea right about now.

She clicked her phone off and stuffed it in the waistband of her pyjamas pants before easing back from the bench and moving to finally pop her wine the fridge. Kara had interrupted the storage process between re-corking and refrigeration so the Merlot dregs were probably oxidised to hell but there were so many reasons why Lena didn't give a damn.

When the CEO slumped into bed, after accidentally brushing her teeth so hard her gums bled, it took her far longer to drift off than she would've liked. The chronically overactive mind that had plagued her for most of her life was churning even faster than usual, covering ground from the probable legislative impacts of the upcoming city elections to Kara related anxiety to potential solutions for the durability issues R&D had been having with their latest ballistic vest. She was being given an acute reminder of why she didn't normally bother going to bed early. Why be unproductively awake in her bedroom when she could be productively awake in her office?

Eventually though, despite the best efforts of her onset insomnia, she did pass into the blissful world of unconsciousness for a full 7.5 hours.

* * *

Kara awoke on Tuesday morning as a complete nervous wreck but she had no time to dwell because she could hear a robbery in progress up town. She leapt out of bed and straight into her supersuit before shooting out her bedroom window, already airborne.

By the time the perps were safely in NCPD custody, Kara was running seriously behind schedule. She only had 30 minutes to get to work and she hadn't even had breakfast.

(Unfortunately for the couple trying to hold up a mid-market jewellery store, a hungry Supergirl was a cranky Supergirl.)

Thank Rao for super-speed.

The reporter clattered into CatCo two minutes early, dropping a long macchiato on Snapper's desk because she wasn't above trying to buy her boss' favour. She needed all the help she could get with the grumpy old git (Lena's description, not hers).

Despite the caffeine bribery, Snapper didn't let her tag along to that morning's editorial meeting ("don't you have actual reporting to do, ponytail?"), and Kara couldn't decide whether she was glad or not. It made for less opportunities to embarrass herself but also less opportunities to stare at Lena so...

Actually, she thought as she fired off an email to Lena's election source, she'd embarrass herself any day for the chance to stare at the CEO so missing the editorial was definitely a disappointment.

It was nice though, to be able to admit to herself how she felt. Pretending to be 100% happy as Lena's friend had been a weight pressing down on her that she hadn't noticed until it was gone. Kara didn't know what it was like to lose much physical weight but ever since her conversation with Maggie she felt at least 100 metaphorical pounds lighter.

Maybe her newfound lightness was why she whizzed through so much work that morning. She was a reporting machine. She got a response from Lena's source, three other corroborating quotes (including one on the record), and typed up a solid first draft all before 11:30.

By 12:00 she'd amended all the edits Snapper had suggested for her article on housing prices and by 12:45 she'd finished up her pitch for a story about the private landfill industry.

Unfortunately she'd got a little carried away with the landfills (who knew dirt could be so interesting) which meant she was now squeezed for time. She wanted to stop by Lena's favourite French bistro but they usually had a line out the door for lunch and, unlike a Luthor, Kara Danvers lacked the credentials to skip to the head of the queue. Supergirl however...

* * *

And that's how Supergirl ended up striding into Baume at 12:48. People in line craned their necks to catch a glimpse as she stood waiting at the counter and nearly every head inside the cafe turned to stare. The poor trainee cashier seemed quite overwhelmed by the situation, so much so that a senior colleague had to come over and help her finish the order.

Kara's fingers itched to fetch her phone from her boot to text Lena that she'd be a little late but there was a limit to the amount of publicly un-Supergirl behaviour she could get away with in one day. Instead, she passed the wait by planning how to transport the food back to CatCo promptly, subtly and intact. She didn't necessarily need to put so much thought into those logistics but it was a useful distraction. The nerves that writhed violently in her gut whenever she considered what she was supposed to be doing over lunch were enough to make even Kara lose her appetite and she wanted to enjoy her 8 ounce steak.

It took until 1:07 for Supergirl's order to be done and she already had a wad of cash pulled from her non-phone boot ready and waiting. She stuffed the bills into the cashier's hand with a tight smile before grabbing her takeout containers and heading for outside.

As she walked she firmly swaddled the styrofoam boxes in their plastic bag (careful not to compress them so much that they broke) before cradling them in her arms like the precious cargo they were. Once she reached the sidewalk she stepped away from Baume before taking to the air uncharacteristically gently.

The flight back to CatCo, which normally took less than 30 seconds, instead took 3 whole minutes as Kara tried not to rattle lunch too much. She remembered to keep the boxes upright for nearly 100% of the journey so when she landed on CatCo's helipad she was quite confident that the food was at least still edible.

She rescued her clothes from where she'd stuffed them behind a crate, chucked them on and then threw her hair up into a ponytail before running for the entrance. It wasn't until she was inside the building that she remembered to shove her glasses on her face. That was an uncomfortably close call. The last thing she needed was to burst into Lena's office with half her disguise missing.

Luckily it didn't take long to reach her destination once she was inside because Lena's makeshift office was in an old maintenance storage room on the very top floor. It was supposed to be a temporary measure but several weeks later the CEO still hadn't moved into accommodations more befitting of her status.

As soon as Kara arrived outside Lena's very nondescript door she raised her hand to knock sharply, not giving herself any chance to overthink.

As soon as she responded to the CEO's call of "come in," by marching boldly into the room she realised that not thinking may have been a mistake. She was radically unprepared for this.

Kara couldn't think of anyone other than Lena Luthor who could look almost regal sitting behind a desk that looked like it cost 100 bucks at Home Depot in an office without windows. She was stunning and Kara was thoroughly stunned.

Oh and _that_ smirk was slowly spreading across Lena's lips which really wasn't helping her function.

* * *

To be honest, Lena barely noticed that Kara was late - partly because the reporter was nearly always late and partly because she wasn't lying when she said she'd be swamped. James Olsen was a very competent Editor-in-Chief but he was not a great financial manager and so she was slogging through an absolute quagmire trying to get the books in order.

And okay, so maybe after Monday's oddities she would've been worried about the time if it weren't for a heart melting Google Alerts email that pinged into her inbox at 12:58. Despite the mountain of work she needed to do, she couldn't resist clicking on the link and up popped a succession of pictures of Supergirl looking thoroughly out of place standing in the middle of a bistro, and not just any bistro - Lena's favourite.

(Yes, she had a Google Alert set up for Supergirl. She liked to stay up to date with any and all news of Kara's alter-ego. It helped her manage her anxiety.)

The CEO rested her chin in her hands and gazed softly at Kara's face on her computer screen in a way that no self-respecting (and extraordinarily busy) grown woman should. She was just so genuinely touched that the reporter was getting her favourite lunch and going so far as to use Supergirl to do it. She'd assumed that Kara would show up with some variety of fast food and that would've been meaningful enough but this was truly above and beyond.

A substantial number of minutes slipped past before Lena shook her head, straightened her back and reluctantly turned her attention back to her actual job. She had shit to do.

* * *

She was doing shit (analysing maintenance expenses) when Kara saved her by rapping on the door. Lena couldn't help but smirk as the reporter tumbled into the room looking somewhat windswept, clutching lunch to her chest like it was a priceless treasure.

Her smirk spread as Kara gaped at her gormlessly, stranded in the no man's land between the door and the desk. She kept expecting the Kryptonian to move or say something but instead she just remained frozen in place for an inordinately long time.

"Kara, hi," the CEO offered warmly to prompt her into action but the woman in question simply stared like a deer in the headlights. "Are you alright?"

"Lunch!" the reporter finally exclaimed, moving to step forward and thrust the food in Lena's direction. "I brought lunch!"

The CEO kept her expression neutral despite her amusement as she leaned over to grab the bag, not bothering to get up because there was nowhere else to sit and she then pulled the containers out as Kara dragged the only other chair in the room over to the desk. Lena popped the top open on the smaller box and then gasped with feigned surprise.

"Oh Kara, you didn't!"

The faux-shock was highly convincing because unlike a certain Kryptonian, Lena was an extremely accomplished liar. You couldn't survive as a Luthor if you weren't. Judging by the bitten back smile and the delightful shade of pink blooming across her cheeks, Kara had fallen for it hook, line and sinker.

The joy though, that Lena felt at the sight of Baume's goat's cheese and leek croquette salad, was 100% authentic. It looked like it had got a little ruffled in flight but it was still a meal to die for.

"Still planning to work through lunch?" Kara asked smugly, her eyes crinkling at the corners as she watched the CEO visually devour her salad.

"You sneaky wench," Lena accused with another gasp, looking up from her salad to glare across her desk without real venom. "This was your plan all along."

The reporter just smiled innocently as she pulled her own container to her side of the desk and Lena narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

"You're far more conniving than you look," she started, pushing a stack of papers out of her way. "This is why you're such a good reporter. And no, I'm not planning to work through lunch."

Kara's smug smile widened before a brief flash of panic crossed her face. It was gone in an instant, replaced by another, more strained smile, but not before Lena spotted it.

"See? We're working on your workaholism," the reporter quipped before cutting into her huge filet mignon that almost cost more than the shoes she was wearing.

Lena hummed skeptically before catching Kara's eye and cracking.

"I'm so glad you're here," she admitted before chomping into a croquette. "Do you know how much CatCo spends on bathroom maintenace and sewerage in a year?"

"No, and I don't know if I want to," Kara replied with a wince. "But I'm sure you're going to tell me."

"$800,000."

"First of all, ouch. Second of all, how do you even know that?"

"I've been hunting for cost efficiencies."

"In the toilet budget?"

"Everywhere. The power bills this building runs are exorbitant."

"Uh huh," the reporter muttered, appraising Lena across the table with an intensity that almost made the CEO squirm. "Should we be discussing this when you're allegedly taking a break?"

"Hmm, perhaps not," Lena began and Kara opened her mouth like she was about to say something before snapping her jaw shut as that same bolt of panic lanced through her eyes.

As much as she wanted to ask the Kryptonian what the hell was going on, the CEO would've been able to bite her tongue if it weren't for the fact that Kara had barely touched her food. That was the last damn straw.

Acting like a pod person all of Monday? Okay, she could let that go. Random looks of panic? Okay, that was concerning but she could still let it go. Not eating? That was full DEFCON 1, giant red flag, alarm bells ringing all over the place, stage an intervention level of worrying and she could not let it go.

"Kara..." she opened gently, not wanting to spook the obviously twitchy reporter who was playing anxiously with her glasses. "Are you truly are alright?"

"What? I'm fine!" she squawked, readjusting her glasses so aggressively that she nearly pulled them off her face.

"Are you sure?" Lena probed and Kara laughed nervously. "Because you've been a little..."

"Weird?" the reporter finished guilty.

"Yeah..."

The CEO wasn't expecting Kara to abruptly stand, shunting her chair back across the fake wooden floor with a squeak in the process but that's exactly what she did.

"I just..." she tried before twirling to pace across the 10ft width of Lena's office.

The CEO sat and watched as Kara alternated between prowling, traipsing, skulking and stutter stepping. Every so often the reporter would gesticulate randomly or stop and turn like she was about to start talking before spinning back to resume her tracks across the room.

Lena wanted to give Kara all the space she needed to say things in her own time, but eventually the waiting just got unbearable.

"Hey," she said, pausing to make sure the reporter had actually heard her before continuing. "You know, you can tell me anything."

"I know," Kara replied immediately, running a frustrated hand across her forehead. "There's something I want to... but I just can't..."

"Make it come out of your mouth?"

"Exactly!"

The CEO looked at her obviously conflicted friend softly and considered that she might be about to make a terrible mistake, before diving right in.

"Kara, it's okay. I know."

The reporter's head whipped around so she could stare at Lena with eyes the size of dinner plates as her whole body tensed.

"What?! You know?!" she peeped, before her eyebrows pulled together into a frown. "Wait... What do you know?"

"I know that you're Supergirl," Lena stated frankly, sitting poker straight behind her desk and the Kryptonian blanched, her face going roughly the same colour as the pale grey wall behind her.

"You... you... what?" Kara stammered as she stumbled back to her chair and collapsed onto the poor quality plastic.

"I know that you're Supergirl," Lena repeated, locking her hands together and leaning forward almost imperceptibly.

The reporter just stared and blinked, and then stared some more.

And then she blinked.

And then she stared.

And then she blinked.

The CEO was genuinely starting to worry that Kara had fallen into catatonia when the Kryptonian finally spoke up, her voice croaking and husky either like she hadn't used it in a decade or like she was a three pack a day smoker.

"But... how?"

Lena laughed. She didn't mean to, and she felt bad at the hint of hurt written in the lines of Kara's face but she just couldn't help it. Laughter bubbled up from deep within her belly and rolled through her being as she chuckled so hard tears sprung to her eyes. She ended up bent over with her forehead pressed to her desk, trying to find space between giggles to suck in air.

Apparently, whatever had got into her was contagious because soon enough Kara was laughing maniacally along with her.

"No, but seriously," the reporter eventually wheezed. "How did you know?"

The CEO snorted, honest to goodness snorted, before lifting her head off her desk to look at Kara, who was resplendent in her mildly hysterical mirth.

"I don't want bore you with the exhaustive list," Lena said before she had to pause to ride out another fit of giggles, "but for one, I had a Supergirl shaped skylight in the roof of my building and the top of my executive elevator with your clothes and bag directly underneath it."

Kara, already pink from laughter, flushed red. She pursed her lips in preparation to apologise but Lena kept going.

"Unless you want to claim that Supergirl snuck in here, stripped you down to your underwear and took you flying out of my lift, then I think the explanation is obvious."

Kara's blush darkened another several shades at the thought of nudity in the executive elevator because that only reminded her of certain other unmentionable fantasies. Lena still wasn't done though.

"That roof repair wasn't cheap by the way. My budget and I would really appreciate it if you could use an open window next time."

"I am really sorry about that," Kara said contritely once she could get a word in edgewise but Lena just laughed as she sat back in her chair.

"It's totally fine."

It was totally fine. If it had been anyone else, Lena would have been seething but this was Kara and if she would spend a million filling the reporter's cubicle with a gorgeously rare array of flowers, then she could spare a few hundred thousand for some building work - especially since she trusted that Supergirl wouldn't blow a hole through her property without good cause.

Kara was smiling nervously and inspecting her hands that were twined together in her lap when Lena dropped her final bombshell.

"Also, there was this," the CEO announced smugly, spinning her desktop screen around so that Kara could see the Supergirl/bistro pictures that she had pulled up while the reporter wasn't looking.

"Oh my Rao."

"Kind of a giveaway," Lena said with a pointed glance at their lunch leftovers while Kara massaged her temples with her thumbs. "Thank you by the way, I loved it."

The 'I love you' that desperately wanted to burst forth from her mouth was left unsaid.

"You're, um... you're welcome," the Kryptonian replied, seeming slightly overwhelmed by the unexpected appreciation.

As she moved her focus from Lena's computer to Lena herself, she saw the time in her peripheral vision and nearly jumped with fright.

"Oh shoot!" she hissed, drawing a perplexed look from the CEO so she explained. "It's twenty to two, I have to go or Snapper will kill me."

"Never fear Supergirl," Lena offered mellifluously as the reporter stood up. "I'll protect you from that vicious fish."

She winked and then added as an afterthought, "I am his boss after all."

"My hero!" Kara exclaimed with an exaggerated swoon as she started moving reluctantly towards the door.

"I'll be your hero any day," the CEO rejoined flirtatiously and Kara suddenly thought maybe she'd die before Snapper got the chance to kill her.

The reporter hovered hesitantly in the doorway with her unfinished lunch tucked under her arm, loathe to leave but fully aware she had to.

"Go be amazing," Lena encouraged, sensing Kara's reticence. "We'll catch up soon."

"I'll hold you to that."

"I'd hope so."

And then the Kryptonian was gone, slipping out of the room and clicking the door closed behind her.

Lena sighed and gazed at the spot that Kara had so recently occupied before harrumphing and retrieving her maintenance papers from where they'd been rejected to. She was going to be here until midnight at the rate she was going.

* * *

Fuck. Kara wasn't normally one to swear but she felt like this warranted a fuck. There was something not going to plan, and then there was that astonishing catastrophe. She wasn't quite sure how she walked into Lena's office planning to ask the woman on a date and then left dateless, having confessed to being Supergirl but oh boy had it happened.

She was going to ask. She really was. But then her mouth wasn't co-operating and Lena had filled in the wrong blanks and wow...

She felt a little like she was in shock as she trudged over to elevators and made her way back to her workspace. She'd been in an emotional tumble dryer for the last 5 days and just as the cycle had started to slow, Lena had cranked the dial right back up to high.

Thank Rao that Snapper wasn't in the bullpen to scold her for arriving back late because that would have just been too much to handle.

Kara plopped down in front of her laptop and forlornly took the lid off her now cold steak because she was actually starving before picking up her phone to text Maggie.

 _1:45pm  
_ Saw Lena today **[Kara]**

 _1:46pm  
_ Disaster **[Kara]**

She then dropped the device heavily onto her desk before logging into her emails. The internet was connecting at a snail's pace so the reporter just chewed her food as she waited, too inundated by thoughts to coherently focus on one.

When her inbox finally loaded she had an approval from Snapper on her landfill pitch and his review of her election draft.

She was downloading Snapper's notes on her story when an alarming thought suddenly crystallised out of the mess inside her mind. Lena had never said if she was fine with the whole Supergirl thing. Okay, sure she definitely seemed fine but Kara had been lying to her for months and what if she was secretly furious and and and...

The Kryptonian was so worried that she grabbed at her phone and fired off a panicked text without even really thinking it through.

 _1:52pm  
_ Are you okay with me being you know what? **[Kara]**

A reply pinged through unexpectedly quickly - the reporter was only three lines into editing her article (and half way through her steak).

 _1:58pm  
_ **[Lena]** Of course I'm okay with it

 _2:00pm  
_ **[Lena]** Have I given you reason to believe I'm not?

Kara could read between the lines to see the uncertain 'or are you worried because I'm a Luthor,' that Lena thought but never actually typed and she rushed to offer her reassurance.

 _2:03pm  
_ No, not at all. I just worried because you know, I lied and stuff **[Kara]**

 _2:06pm  
_ **[Lena]** It's not a problem. Part and parcel of being a superhero right?

 _2:07pm  
_ It sucks **[Kara]**

 _2:09pm  
_ **[Lena]** I'm sure. Unfortunately, don't we both have work we're supposed to be doing right now?

 _2:10pm  
_ Allegedly, yes **[Kara]**

 _2:10pm  
_ That also sucks **[Kara]**

 _2:11pm  
_ **[Lena]** You're telling me

 _2:15pm  
_ **[Lena]** I'm putting my phone away so I stop corrupting my productivity and that of my employees, but talk tonight?

 _2:17pm  
_ That would be nice **[Kara]**

The last thing Kara did before she tossed her phone in her top drawer and went back to pouring her full focus into her day job was to flick over to Maggie's message thread and add an amendment.

 _2:19pm  
_ Maybe a good disaster **[Kara]**

* * *

That evening, in the central NCPD station, Detective Maggie Sawyer was finally getting off shift after a 13 hour day. She retrieved her phone from her locker to check her messages for the first time since the crack of dawn and what she found from Little Danvers was thoroughly confusing. Maybe it was because she was really fucking tired but she just couldn't figure it out for the life of her.

As she stomped her way towards the exit, the detective pulled up Kara's contact and hit call. The dial tone rang three times before the reporter picked up and Maggie could finally ask her burning question.

"What the hell is a good disaster?"

* * *

 **A/N: I'm still kinda pissed that the giant hole in CatCo just never got mentioned again. That's a plot hole big enough to fly Supergirl through.**

 **I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone who takes the time to review. I really appreciate it and it's great motivation. You guys are awesome. But I also appreciate everyone who's just taken time from their day to read this, you're great too.**

 **All mistakes are mine (it's late where I live and I haven't edited much so there's bound to be some, sorry). Standard disclaimers apply.**


	4. Kid, you're killing me

**A/N: So a warning before you begin - this chapter is pretty terrible. I know where I'm going after this but this chapter has kinda ended up as crappy filler. If I could be bothered I'd probably totally re-work it but I definitely can't be bothered (tmi but I've had killer PMS haha) so here you are. Please forgive me and if you're willing to stick it out with this story, I promise it *should* get better after this.**

* * *

It was after 7pm and Kara was drowning her sorrows in lime milkshake and doughnuts when her phone rang.

(She knew that 7 barely counted as night to Lena but she was still miserable that she hadn't heard from her. Sugar helped.)

"What the hell is a good disaster?"

Ah, she'd forgotten about sending that text.

"Well hello to you too, Maggie."

"Hi. Now what the hell is a good disaster?"

"Who put you in such a charming mood?"

"You're avoiding the question."

"I am not!"

She was definitely avoiding the question.

"Yes you are."

"Yes I am."

Maggie was perceptive and Kara was a terrible liar so of course she admitted it.

"So..?"

"I didn't ask her out."

"Kara..."

"And she knows I'm Supergirl."

"Kara!"

"But she's not mad at me about it!"

The Kryptonian could hear Maggie face-palming down the line. Literally. She heard Maggie's hand smack into her forehead.

"I don't even... How?!"

"I was gonna ask!" Kara slurred around the huge bite of doughnut she'd just taken. "But then I was taking a while and she thought I was trying to tell her I was Supergirl..."

"You did your thing where you pace around not saying anything, didn't you?"

"That's not my thing!"

It totally was her thing.

"Yes it is."

"Okay fine, yes that's what I did."

"Kara..."

Maggie's voice was thick with exasperation.

"I didn't know she knew."

"Seriously? Of course she knew! She's Lena fucking Luthor."

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

Tension coiled in Kara's muscles as she poised to leap to the CEO's defence but Maggie quickly clarified before the hero blew a gasket.

"She's the smartest person in this damn city. If I figured it out, she definitely would."

"Oh."

"Anyway, what are you gonna do now?"

"I don't know..."

"You know Little Danvers, you make it really hard to be your lesbian fairy godmother."

"It's not my fault!"

"It's mainly your fault."

In response Kara took another sullen bite of doughnut and chewed obnoxiously loudly.

"Yes I can hear that and yes it's gross. Well done," Maggie said with an audible wince.

"You deserve it," Kara retorted, accidentally spraying doughnut crumbs across her lap.

"I have to drive now," the detective replied, ignoring the jibe, "and as an officer of the law I can't use my phone behind the wheel but seriously, just ask her out."

"You make it sound so simple!"

"It is so simple."

Kara scoffed skeptically before Maggie kept talking.

"Keep me updated!"

And then the end call tone was beeping in her ear before the reporter could threaten to withhold information if the detective wasn't nicer.

Kara sighed from deep within her chest and dropped her phone onto the couch beside her before resentfully sucking milkshake up through her straw. Just because Maggie was a lesbian lothario extraordinaire who wouldn't be intimidated by asking 'Lena fucking Luthor' on a date didn't mean it was simple for her too.

Honestly, Kara could really do with some sort of disaster or emergency right about now to take her mind off her train wreck of a personal life but National City wasn't obliging. Why did criminals never act up when it was convenient? Assholes.

(Kara didn't know what it was about this situation with Lena that had made her pick up Alex's swearing habit but she'd never been this potty-mouthed before in her life.)

The Kryptonian was in the middle of deciding whether she could be bothered getting up to go joy-flying when her phone chirped, lighting up with Lena's name and a message notification. Kara's heart leapt embarrassingly into her throat and in her eagerness she would've used super-speed to punch in her passcode except she'd already learned the device couldn't process movements that fast. She tapped into the CEO's text as quickly as her phone would let her and then burst out laughing.

 _7:37pm  
_ **[Lena]** You'll be pleased to know I'm having dinner

Objectively it wasn't that funny, but subjectively it was hilarious. The reporter genuinely had to take a moment to collect herself before she could reply.

 _7:40pm  
_ I'm very pleased, but if you're eating in your office you're still in trouble **[Kara]**

 _7:41pm  
_ Are you at work? **[Kara]**

 _7:42pm  
_ **[Lena]** Can I plead the fifth?

 _7:42pm  
_ No **[Kara]**

 _7:46pm  
_ **[Lena]** I guess I'm in big trouble then

Kara could imagine Lena's flirtatious tone perfectly and her apartment suddenly felt about 20 degrees hotter. She took a gulp of her mercifully cold milkshake to try to cool her raging hormones but it barely took the edge off. Her drink was finished and she only had half a doughnut left by the time she felt prepared to respond.

 _7:51pm  
_ You're planning one of those weeks aren't you? **[Kara]**

 _7:53pm  
_ **[Lena]** What exactly is one of those weeks?

 _7:54pm  
_ Those weeks where you don't go home **[Kara]**

 _7:56pm  
_ **[Lena]** Oh no, I have to go home

 _7:57pm  
_ **[Lena]** This office doesn't have a couch, or space for any of my clothes

 _7:58pm  
_ You're terrible **[Kara]**

She nearly sent 'but I love you anyway' except she chickened out.

 _8:00pm  
_ Do I have to bring you lunch again tomorrow? **[Kara]**

 _8:03pm  
_ **[Lena]** No

Kara's heart started to sink but then another text popped onto her screen.

 _8:04pm  
_ **[Lena]** But if you swing by my office I'll order in

 _8:04pm  
_ **[Lena]** I'll even let you choose the cuisine

A smile slowly crept across Kara's face until she was full on beaming.

 _8:05pm  
_ Does pizza count as a cuisine? **[Kara]**

 _8:06pm  
_ **[Lena]** Not technically, no

 _8:06pm  
_ **[Lena]** Gianni's?

 _8:07pm  
_ Yusssss! **[Kara]**

 _8:08pm  
_ Same time? **[Kara]**

 _8:11pm  
_ **[Lena]** Perfect

The reporter was happily snuggling back against the armrest of her couch when a thought suddenly occurred to her.

 _8:14pm  
_ Are you still coming to game night on Saturday? **[Kara]**

 _8:17pm  
_ **[Lena]** Wouldn't miss it for the world

 _8:19pm  
_ **[Lena]** I have to get back to work but see you tomorrow?

 _8:21pm  
_ Wouldn't miss it for the world **[Kara]**

 _8:26pm  
_ Go to sleep before midnight **[Kara]**

Knowing that Lena wouldn't reply, Kara deposited her phone on the coffee table and burrowed under her second favourite blanket before flicking on the TV. She was so ready for a lazy night in watching trash and eating rubbish so of course that's when an overpass collapsed, throwing a dozen cars and a multitude of pedestrians onto the busy street below. Nothing ever went wrong when she wanted it to (and everything went wrong when she didn't).

* * *

Lena went to bed at 12:50am. She never told Kara, and luckily for her, the reporter never remembered to ask.

* * *

When Kara turned up at the CEO's office on Wednesday, significantly less flustered than she'd been the previous day (and significantly more on time), she discovered three Gianni's boxes stacked high on Lena's desk.

"Vege supreme - mine of course, pepperoni and cheese extreme," the CEO said, taking each pizza off the pile and flicking their lids open as she went. Kara was so overjoyed she could've kissed her. She didn't, but she could've.

She also could've asked Lena out on a date but she didn't do that either.

Instead, they spent their whole 45 minutes together discussing Krypton. Or rather, Lena asked questions and then listened intently as Kara answered, probing with follow ups as required. She wanted to know about absolutely everything.

\- Science

\- Culture

\- Technology

\- History

\- Politics

\- Religion

\- Kara's family

\- Her childhood

\- Language

\- Economics

\- Society

\- Law

\- Environment

\- Architecture

\- Infrastructure

\- Etc etc etc

The question list was almost endless and over their whole lunch they barely made their way through 10% of it.

(It was literally a list. Lena had an encrypted document on her phone where she'd been recording Krypton-related questions as she thought of them so she didn't forget by the time she got the chance to ask.)

It could've felt exploitative and invasive, like her memories were being selfishly data mined to satisfy somebody else's morbid curiosity but it was never like that. Not with Lena. Lena asked questions as though she wanted to understand Krypton so that she could understand Kara Zor-El. She asked questions like she cared because she did care and Kara could _feel_ it.

The reporter didn't normally talk about the planet that would always be her home regardless of how many decades it was extinct for. It hurt too much. But for those 45 minutes in her boss' pitiful excuse for an office, words and stories flowed forth with ease and without pain. It was cathartic, and it was connection - with home and with Lena.

It was wonderful.

She left the CEO's office with the firm and purposeful hug Lena had given her as a goodbye lingering on her skin and the heartfelt "thank you" that had been whispered into her hair echoing in her ears. They stayed with her as she moved through the rest of the day as a comforting warmth that permeating her very being.

Her week had taken a distinctly positive turn.

* * *

Kara showed up outside Lena's door at one o'clock on the dot on Thursday with a bag of croissants even though the CEO wasn't expecting her. Supergirl had been called out at half eleven on Wednesday night and, much to her disgust, she'd clearly heard Lena's heartbeat ticking away at the top of CatCo. If she couldn't make the woman sleep, she could at least bring her lunch.

Lena's smile when Kara entered the room was breathtaking. She looked thrilled.

"I was hoping you might stop by."

"Well here I am, stopping by," the reporter said redundantly as she took a seat. It didn't escape her notice that the CEO hadn't moved the spare chair back to its customary position in the corner, but rather it was hopefully ready and waiting on Kara's side of the desk.

Thursday's conversation was light and airy. They didn't discuss work, or Krypton, or anything else overly angst inducing. The most strenuous topic that came up was a serious debate over whether Christmas Mariah Carey or non-Christmas Mariah Carey was preferable.

(Anyone who'd met Kara more than twice could surely guess which side of the argument she fell on.)

Their lunch ended with another prolonged hug that set the Kryptonian's heart racing and she skipped back down to her cubicle with a spring in her step, but she still hadn't asked Lena out. It was actually getting ridiculous. At this point, even Kara couldn't miss the way Lena sometimes looked at her.

 _'HEART EYES!'_ shouted her inner Maggie.

The issue though, was that whenever Kara considered popping that question, her brain turned to complete mush and she lost the ability to perform as a person. She was managing that problem by just not thinking about it, which in some ways was a success because she'd done a remarkable job of seeming normal for past two days but in other ways it was an abject failure because it meant she remained dateless.

* * *

Friday's silently agreed upon lunch was much less calm and idyllic. Kara arrived to find the CEO prowling around her office like a caged tiger, papers scattered across the floor. The reporter entered tentatively, as not to provoke the irate Luthor and delicately placed lunch on Lena's desk before retreating to the safety of her usual seat. She then observed as the CEO petulantly kicked at a stray document on the ground before she stalked over to her chair and growled as she grumpily sat down.

(It was both sexy and adorable, and Kara had to suck her cheeks in to hold back a smile.)

"I apologise for my behaviour," Lena said stiffly, twisting her fingers in the chain of her necklace. "It's just that Wolfhart Siegemund is being... difficult."

Kara had no idea who Wolfhart Siegemund was but the CEO said his name with a distinct hint of disgust.

"Do you wanna talk about it?" the reporter offered but Lena was shaking her head before the sentence was even finished.

"Oh no, I wouldn't want to bother you."

"You wouldn't be bothering me!"

Lena cast one last questioning look across the desk but as soon as Kara nodded her reassurance, the CEO was off and away.

The Kryptonian watched more than listened as Lena vented her numerous frustrations (partly because she didn't understand half of what the woman was talking about and partly because Lena was painfully hot when she was angry) but she did gather that Wolfhart Siegemund was a "majestic fucking prick of the highest order," which was "aggressively unappealing, both personally and professionally," and that he should "do everyone a favour stick his fucking head in a microwave."

Something gave Kara the feeling that the CEO didn't like Mr. Siegemund very much.

(Also, apparently Lena swearing did _things_ to her but she was trying not to get distracted by that because the CEO needed her to be supportive, not horny. Her inner Maggie tried to tempt her with the concept of _'supportively horny'_ but Kara nobly resisted.)

Speaking of Maggie, later that afternoon (long after the reporter had left a much cheerier Lena behind in her office to ruthlessly deal to Mr. Siegemund and his "spectacular bullshit"), the detective's name flashed up on Kara's phone screen.

 _4:56pm  
_ **[Mags]** Ask her out yet?

The reporter knew exactly how well her answer would go down so she held off on replying until after she'd walked out of CatCo for the night.

 _6:40pm  
_ Not yet **[Kara]**

 _7:11pm  
_ **[Mags]** Kid, you're killing me

 _7:17pm  
_ **[Mags]** Have you seen her again?

The timestamps on the conversation gave away Kara's reluctance to admit her cowardice.

 _7:45pm  
_ Everyday. For lunch **[Kara]**

 _7:49pm  
_ **[Mags]** Holy mary mother of god

 _7:51pm  
_ **[Mags]** Pray for us sinners

The reference went completely over Kara's alien head, but it helped Maggie's lapsed Catholic soul cope.

 _7:58pm  
_ I'm seeing her again tomorrow **[Kara]**

 _8:04pm  
_ **[Mags]** Fifth time lucky?

 _8:07pm  
_ It's game night so... **[Kara]**

 _8:09pm  
_ **[Mags]** So fifth time unlucky with lots of heart eyes and very little action

 _8:10pm  
_ Pretty much **[Kara]**

 _8:16pm  
_ **[Mags]** Dude, you kick criminal ass like constantly. How hard can asking a woman on a date be?

 _8:20pm  
_ Kicking criminal behind is easy. Asking that woman on a date is very hard **[Kara]**

 _8:21pm  
_ Very very very hard **[Kara]**

 _8:30pm  
_ **[Mags]** You know what little danvers?

 _8:31pm  
_ What? **[Kara]**

 _8:33pm  
_ **[Mags]** You need to screw it, just do it

 _8:34pm  
_ **[Mags]** Or screw it, just do her

 _8:34pm  
_ **[Mags]** Or screw her, just do it

Well wasn't that the freaking dream.

(Literally in terms of the sex dreams that intermittently plagued her sleeping hours and figuratively in terms of how much she wished those dreams would become reality.)

 _8:38pm  
_ You're so helpful **[Kara]**

 _8:40pm  
_ **[Mags]** You're welcome

The detective was clearly and deliberately ignoring Kara's sarcasm.

 _8:50pm  
_ **[Mags]** But seriously kid, just do it. I know you're scared but it'll be so worth it

At quarter past 9, an emotional Kara was about to reply when a call came through about a Khalasian wreaking havoc downtown and she had to run (or rather, fly). Supergirl was stuck debriefing at the DEO when her phone next buzzed, still lying on the rug in her apartment where she'd dropped it.

 _10:24pm  
_ **[Mags]** Going to Alex's the night we hooked up was one of the scariest things I've ever done and she'd already told me she was keen so I get it

 _10:26pm_  
 **[Mags]** I know you're shit terrified

 _10:30pm  
_ **[Mags]** But being with Alex was one of the best things that ever happened to me and even though it hurts so fucking much right now I will always be glad I went over that night. I will always treasure every second I had with her even though I got my heart smashed to pieces

 _10:32pm  
_ **[Mags]** I can't promise that you and Lena will end well. When I met Alex I thought I was set and look what happened. But if you just ask, I know she'll say yes and I know you won't regret it. Just go for it. You only live once, right?

* * *

 **A/N: Congratulations and thank you if you made it this far lol. This isn't where I thought this chapter was gonna end but then it just kinda fit so here we are. I don't know why or how this whole story has ended up being so long, it just sorta happened but we should stop treading water and actually start going somewhere next chapter so hang with me.**

 **Usual disclaimers etc and sorry again for all the editing that needed to happen but didn't.**

 **Oh and in case you're wondering, I'm a bit of a grinch so I'm firmly in the non-Christmas Mariah Carey camp.**


	5. This was not the game night plan

**I was going to upload this yesterday until life got in the way but here you go. Things get a little crack-y and weird ahead. I don't even know. I've been tired**

* * *

Lena's Saturday was a frantic rush of trying to tie up loose ends so she could go to game night without the spectre of stress hanging over her head like the guillotine over Marie Antoinette. She didn't want a repeat of the game night where she tried to sporadically get work done in Kara's bathroom until the reporter threatened to flush her phone down the toilet.

Through almost superhuman effort she actually managed to finish everything she needed to get done in time to make it to Kara's for five, so of course that's when she got a call from her least favourite board member. As much as she wanted to, she couldn't actually ignore him and the old bastard nattered on for an age before she managed to hang up.

That's how she ended up crashing into game night forty minutes late, carrying a bottle of Shiraz, a basket of cupcakes and a hefty load of guilt.

"I'm so sorry, I got caught up," the CEO apologised as a chorus of "Hi Lena," rang out from around Kara's dining table where the superfriends were half an hour into a contentious round of monopoly.

(Alex had already thrown popcorn at Winn and Kara was already practically bankrupt. The monopoly gods had damned the Danvers sisters that night.)

As Lena made her way across the apartment, the younger Danvers got up to meet her in the kitchen, happy to abandon her non-existent property portfolio.

"I really am sorry," Lena repeated as she uncorked the wine while her best friend peered through the cellophane over the cupcakes, obviously trying to deduce the flavour selection. "Don't worry, I didn't forget to get you chocolate and buttercream frosting."

"Okay, fine, you're forgiven."

Lena laughed and poured herself a glass as Kara enthusiastically ripped into the cupcakes while, over on the monopoly table, Alex stole her sister's last $300 when she thought nobody was looking. The CEO leaned back against the bench and sipped her red, allowing herself to relax into the comfortable atmosphere of the evening as she watched Kara devour three cakes in the space of roughly thirty seconds. The ecstatic moans that rumbled out of the reporter's mouth were positively filthy and more than mild arousal mixed with Lena's amusement. If it weren't for their game night company, she didn't know if she would possess the self control to stop herself from pressing Kara against the kitchen island and doing something she'd probably regret in the morning.

* * *

(So it was possible that, as a reporter, Kara had audibly exaggerated her cupcake enjoyment for investigative purposes and well... Lena's reaction certainly hadn't disappointed.)

* * *

The CEO's wine had disappeared rapidly and her lip had been thoroughly chewed on by the time Kara tore herself away from cupcake heaven.

"Why were you late, anyway?" she asked, as howls of disgust emanated from the remaining monopoly players because Sam had just dropped hotels on Park Place and Boardwalk.

"Carlton Hemings called."

"Oh yuck. Say no more."

Lena had to smile, both at the face Kara pulled and at the fact that the Kryptonian had remembered her Carlton Hemings issues.

"So hey," Kara said, tipping her head at the table where Alex was chewing Sam out for being a "capitalist pig" while L-Corp's acting CEO gleefully counted the thousands in rent she'd just extracted from the agent. "Want to order takeout while those idiots finish off?"

"Please," Lena agreed gratefully, delicately placing her wine glass on the bench. "I'm starving."

"Did you have lunch?" Kara asked with narrowed eyes and a warning in her tone.

"I did, actually." The CEO was almost smug but Kara kept looking at her suspiciously so she doubled down. "I swear. I'm just hungry."

"Coffee doesn't count as food."

"I had a sandwich, if you must know."

"Fine," the reporter conceded as she kicked away from the kitchen island to rescue her laptop from the coffee table. "I 'spose that's good enough."

* * *

Kara spent many minutes lodging many orders at various restaurants nearby while Sam brutally bankrupted both Winn and Alex, leaving James as the last remaining barrier between Ms. Arias and monopoly world domination. Lena had gone over to help him strategise and Sam hadn't even complained about the blatant cheating, such was her confidence.

Her confidence, it turned out, was warranted. Between the fact that she owned three quarters of the real estate and the fact that James was terrible at following Lena's wise instructions, she'd completed her victory within another two laps of the board. The CEO was watching proudly as her sort-of-protege basked in her glory when she spotted Kara fishing in her bag for her wallet.

That just wouldn't do.

Lena nipped over to the kitchen, out of the reporter's line of sight and snagged the laptop over to the other side of the counter. For someone with super-senses, the Kryptonian was being remarkably unobservant because she didn't notice Lena until she pulled her nose out of her bag, debit card clutched in her fist and by then, the CEO was already filling in her own card details.

"What are you doing?!"

Lena didn't bother looking up as she replied.

"Buying dinner."

"Oh you don't have to do that!"

"Excuse me, which one of us is a billionaire?"

Kara stopped arguing after that.

* * *

The lot of them ate their takeout smorgasbord over several hands of go fish. It was Winn's idea - he claimed that with high satisfaction and high simplicity it was the perfect game to play with food. Lena vehemently, but silently disagreed. Maybe it was because she was a Luthor, but in her opinion, you could only consider go fish simple if you didn't bother trying. It was a game ripe for card counting and keeping constant track of who appeared to have what, which pairs were definitely out and which cards must be waiting in the deck was significantly harder when she occasionally failed to pay attention to a turn because she was too absorbed in Pad Thai.

By her standards, Lena had a terrible night. That, of course, meant she still absolutely cleaned everybody out - just not as spectacularly as she might've liked.

"What is it with you corporate types," Alex complained, throwing her cards across the table in disgusted resignation before flicking an accusing stare from the CEO to Sam and back again.

"We're savvy," Sam retorted while Lena stayed above the fray, aloofly sipping her Shiraz.

"What's up next?" Kara popped up with the interruption to head off the seventh semi-serious argument of the evening between her sister and the acting CEO. Sam had quickly become Alex's replacement Maggie, at least in the sarcastic banter department and sometimes it was just excessive.

"Truth or dare."

There were drastically different reactions around the table to Alex's sudden suggestion ranging from wildly enthusiastic (Winn), intrigued (Sam) and accepting (James) to apprehensive (Kara) and categorically opposed (Lena).

"It's four against two," the elder Danvers reasoned, her statement primarily directed towards Lena who looked about ready to bolt out of the room.

"I might sit this one out, actually," the CEO attempted, knowing it would work as well as the time she tried to get out of karaoke.

"Oh no, we're all in this together."

Unexpectedly, it was James that spoke up and, unlike on the fateful karaoke night, Lena gave up at the first hurdle instead of trying to threaten or bribe her way out of it. She was coming to grudgingly accept that being a part of this ragtag little friend group meant engaging in harmless but unsophisticated activities that she'd usually avoid like the plague.

Her silence was correctly interpreted as acquiescence and Alex practically giggled as she arranged the shot glass in the middle of the table. "Everyone know the rules?"

There were affirmative replies that ranged from nods to "yeahs" to a "duh" and then there was Lena, mouth turned down at the edges as she shook her head.

"You've never played truth or dare?!"

Alex was aghast.

"Once, actually," the CEO clarified. "But I was fifteen and there was certainly no alcohol involved."

"Jesus, you're such a Victorian sometimes."

Since the elder Danvers was too pre-occupied with her shock, Winn stepped in with an explanation.

"If you don't want to take your turn, you drink the shot."

Lena considered this new piece of information and suspiciously eyed the bottle of cheap vodka that Alex had retrieved from the spot where she stashed it in Kara's freezer, before giving a sharp nod and then the game was off and away.

* * *

Truth or Dare stayed relatively tame for an unusually long time. Things didn't start going off the rails until Sam dared Winn to kiss James. With tongue. Surprisingly, the computer whizz didn't vodka-out but rather plastered his hands on James' cheeks and laid one right on him, complete with more than adequate tongue action.

Sam and Alex both squawked hysterically with laughter while Kara and Lena exchanged amused glances at the antics. The CEO might not have looked so entertained if she knew what was coming for her.

Winn truthed Alex to tell them about the first time she kissed a girl but there was no juicy gossip because she really was so oblivious about her own lesbianism that Maggie was her first everything. The question did, however, break through her alcohol haze to remind her of why she even suggested truth or dare in the first place.

"Lena."

The malignant undertone in Alex's voice and the predatory glint in her eye was enough to set the CEO's nerves on edge.

"Truth or dare."

Lena's job required her to be decisive. She made monumental decisions that could impact not only herself and her company but the entire country or even the world on a regular basis and she was bloody good at it. With this though? She was acting like a newly promoted floor manager who had to make their first hard call. She spent such a long while vacillating between the two options that Alex asked again.

"Lena, truth or dare."

She could feel everyone's expectant eyes on her, burning tracks across her skin so she just spat out the first thing that came to mind.

"Truth."

Alex cackled - a full-blown, evil witch cackle and Lena instantly suspected she'd made the wrong choice. The agent slowly leaned forward across the table, dragging out the suspense out like a tightrope before cutting everyone loose.

"How did Sam know about your karaoke song?"

That was a decision Lena could make in a heartbeat. She was reaching for the shot glass before Alex had even finished her sentence, grabbing the vodka and slamming it back without hesitation. There was no way she was up for sharing that particular story in this particular company.

"Aw, come on dude, really?" Alex whined, although she was impressed with Lena's drinking skills.

"I'm following the rules aren't I?"

The agent gave her a brutal stink eye and snickers sounded around the table but Alex had to concede, leaning back in her chair to drown her disappointment in beer. The CEO was more than happy to move on.

"Kara, truth or dare?"

"Truth," the reporter replied, far quicker than Lena had.

"If you had to walk around naked all day or have all your thoughts appear in bubbles over your head, which would you choose?"

"Naked."

Lena's eyebrows shot up to her hairline at the speed and brevity of Kara's answer, and she had to know more.

"What exactly have you been thinking that you don't want anyone to know about?"

"You've already asked your question," Kara retorted as she felt her ears burn red. Lena desperately wanted to prod the Kryptonian further but she could literally see Kara's embarrassment so she parked her curiosity for a later, less public date.

The reporter breathed out a sigh of relief once it became apparent that she was being let off the hook but she didn't show the CEO the same mercy.

"Lena, truth or dare?"

"Me, again?"

"Yes."

"Fine, dare."

There was no deliberation from the Luthor this time around. Truth had not been kind to her and she wasn't giving it a second chance.

"I dare you to answer Alex's question."

"Seriously?!"

Another round of rowdy laughter rang around the table as Lena gawped disbelievingly at her smirking best friend. If this was what she got for being nice, she wouldn't make that mistake again.

This time the CEO was slower in her reaction but in the end, she eased forward, grasped the shot glass and knocked it back to a chorus of jeers and scoffing.

"What could be so bad you won't tell us?" James asked as Sam smugly sang "na na na na na I know and you don't," at a low-key seething Alex.

Lena completely ignored her Editor-in-Chief, not even acknowledging that he'd made a sound, instead turning to her self-satisfied acting CEO.

"Sam, truth or dare."

"Dare."

And that's how Samantha Arias ended up performing a minute long interpretative dance about parenting. There were flailing arms and mimed screaming, barrel rolls on the floor and forward rolls across the lounge, hugs and leaps, some sort of movement that looked like a seizure and imitated sobbing. It was incredibly evocative and it took another minute for anybody else in the room to be able to breathe through their laughter.

Once the general ruckus calmed down, Sam turned on Winn and his dare selection left him having to stuff his arm into Kara's trash can up to his elbow. Unfortunately for the poor boy, it had been a while since she got round to emptying it and there were a lot of slimy takeout packets in there that had been decomposing for up to ten days. He whimpered like a dog as his limb squelched through the garbage before he yanked it out (sending a burger wrapped flying across the kitchen in the process) and ran squealing to the bathroom to rinse his arm in the shower.

"That was mean," he whinged once he emerged with the sleeve of his shirt wet from where his aim with the shower head hadn't been great.

"That's the game," Sam said with a shrug and Winn sneered at her as he sat back down.

"Alex is right, you are a capitalist pig."

Sam just clicked her tongue and shrugged again, clearly unbothered.

Unluckily for Ms. Arias' boss, Winn's turn had put him in a vindictive mood.

"Lena..."

"No."

"Truth or dare."

"This is persecution."

"That's the game," Agent Schott said with a glance at Sam who tipped her head in agreement.

"Fine," the CEO huffed, already planning her revenge. "Dare."

"Answer Alex's question."

"You have got to be kidding me," Lena said with an eye roll so dramatic she nearly saw her own brain as Winn just sat there with an attempt at an innocent smile stretched across his lips. It wasn't very convincing.

"You're all going to keep asking me until I answer or I'm so drunk I can't talk, aren't you?" the CEO asked, casting an accusing glare at each superfriend one after the other.

"Yup," Alex confirmed, grinning into the rim of her glass.

"Or," James added, "we could just ask Sam."

"I'm certain Samantha knows better than to divulge that sort of sensitive information," Lena replied coolly and Sam nodded intently.

"Why? Whatcha gonna do? Fire her?" James teased. "That's very Luthor of you."

He regretted it as soon as the words escaped his mouth, partly because of brief flicker of hurt that flashed behind emerald eyes and partly because of the sharp pain in his shin where Kara kicked him far harder than necessary.

Lena did her best to brush James' comment aside as her gaze bounced from the vodka to her table mates and back while she assessed her options. The furiously stubborn part of her (which was perhaps the part shaped by Lillian Luthor) was tempted to drink until they gave up, just to prove a point. Another, more amenable part (perhaps the part that had been softened by having friends and especially by having Kara) was willing to abandon the fight.

It was a testament to her personal development over recent months that Lillian lost.

"If you must know," Lena began and a palpable buzz of anticipation rose around the table, "Sam was that song's first test subject."

"What the hell does that mean?" Alex asked demandingly after a long pause, voicing nearly everyone's confusion.

"What the hell do you think it means?" Sam interjected with a snicker. "You saw what it did those girls in that bar."

The CEO could practically hear the cogs whirring and grinding in Alex's head as her eyes twitchily flicked from Lena to Sam and back again.

"You..." the agent started haltingly, pointing at the Luthor, "and you..." she continued, jabbing her finger in Sam's direction "you... you..."

"Yes, we had sex," Lena confirmed breezily, like she was discussing the weather. "Is that what you wanted to hear?"

And then the table exploded. Not literally, which was always a risk with Kara around, but figuratively. There was a veritable cacophony of noise as Alex, Winn and James all shouted over top of each other.

"What?!"

"Is Kara the only straight woman here?!"

"Wow."

"When?!"

"This is a joke right?!"

At that point Lena had to intervene.

"I assure you Mr. Schott -"

"Agent Schott."

"Mr. Schott," the CEO repeated out of pure pettiness, taking no small delight in the offence that crossed Winn's face. "I guarantee you this is most certainly not a joke."

"And," Sam added, just to stir the pot, "she's as brilliant in bed as she is in the boardroom in case anyone's wondering."

* * *

The 'anyone' was punctuated with a pointed look at Kara and it was the last straw for the hero who felt like she was about to combust or break something or scream or all three all at once.

"Fire!" she blurted out abruptly, jerkily shunting her chair backwards. "There's a fire so I have to... go..."

That's when she remembered Sam didn't know about her Supergirl gig. She foraged around in her imagination for any plausible excuse, eventually landing on "Because Snapper called, I mean texted, about the fire! And I have to go... report..."

She was up and bumbling over to the door by that point but she kept rambling anyway, much to Sam's bemusement and everyone else's amusement. "Because that's me! A reporter! I report! Things... the news... like fires!"

Then she was out of the apartment and slamming the door shut behind her to finally save herself from her own mouth. She lingered for mere milliseconds before she was racing out of the building as fast as her alien legs could carry her. She burst into the back alley in the blink of an eye, ripped her clothes off and stuffed them into their hiding spot by the stairs before rocketing into the sky. As soon as she was high enough that she wouldn't shatter windows with her wake turbulence, she accelerated to 750mph and didn't stop until she hit the outer stratosphere. The speed, rapid temperature changes and lack of oxygen made for a nice distraction from the way her heart was hurling itself against her ribcage as it rended in two.

She should be happy that Lena had someone safe and stable and _human_ but instead she just felt sick.

The downside of slowing to a hover at 135000ft was that, above most of the atmosphere's ozone, the strength of the yellow sun was amplified and Kara's powers were supercharged. That meant that when she tuned into her ears (because of course she couldn't resist) she picked up the conversation drifting out of her loft with crystal clear clarity.

"So are you two like... together?!"

That was Winn, and she could imagine his baffled expression so perfectly that there wasn't any point focusing her vision in.

"Oh god no," replied Lena and Kara's heart seized in her chest with relief. "We just slept together once."

"Five times," Sam corrected under cover of a fake cough. "Or was it seven?"

Kara was still only listening so she didn't see Lena elbow Sam in the side but she did hear the CEO hiss "it was one weekend and we never left my hotel room, it counts as once."

"You were busy," chuckled James and, unbeknownst to Kara in the sky above, Lena rolled her eyes as Sam smirked.

"That's quite beside the point," the CEO said briskly. "It was a long time ago. There's no need to make a big deal out of it."

"I'm pretty sure it's a big deal!" Alex exclaimed, finally rediscovering her voice after an extended period of being struck dumb.

"It's really not," Sam said, chiming in with her two cents which set off scornful laughter from the eldest Danvers. What Alex didn't know was that Lena was preparing to land her killer blow.

"Agent Danvers," she began, leaning forward to steeple her fingers contemplatively on the table top (which Kara did see because she was now staring through the roof of her building), "I know you're only about 14 in gay years so you might not realise, but a lesbian having sex with her friends is not an extraordinary event."

"It's true," Samn confirmed solemnly and a highly disgruntled Alex pursed her lips petulantly. Winn took advantage of his superior's silence to jump into the conversation.

"So how many of your friends have you slept with?"

"Dude..." James admonished while Alex shook her head disapprovingly at the pervy question even though she was dying to know too. At the same time, Lena and Sam were replying almost simultaneously.

"That's really none of your business."

"Hah! Like I'd tell you."

"So ah..." James interjected, actually quite keen to change the subject. "Round of scrabble, anyone?"

At that, Kara pulled her vision back and tuned her ears out because she'd heard the scrabble debate so many times she could practically quote it off the top of her head. She really didn't need to listen to it again.

Instead, she banked sharply to the right and hared off through the sky, flipping through a series of aerobatic manoeuvres from rolls to spins to loops to the Kryptonian version of a stall turn. She put herself through her paces, pushing up to +11G and later down to -9 to induce a level of physical exertion that would help her mind churn through the deluge of new information it had just been exposed to.

\- Lena and Sam had a thing

\- Lena and Sam were not currently having a thing

\- Lena had possibly had things with other unidentified friends

On the surface, it seemed perfectly simple but somehow Kara still felt like an utter mess inside.

In an attempt to settle her tumultuous emotions she straightened her flight path and shot out over the ocean until she was far enough away from the city that she was able to blast through the sound barrier without breaking FAA rules on noise pollution.

(She'd fallen afoul of the ban on overland supersonic flight early in her Supergirl career and J'onn had to give her a lecture on aerospace regulations. Rao that had been a dull one).

She cranked up to Mach 2 in an attempt to out-fly her feelings which didn't work in a literal sense but it did help her blow off steam. She covered over 200 miles in less than 10 minutes before flipping around and heading back to the city at a slightly more sedate velocity and in a significantly more functional headspace. She was just going to process later - when she didn't have an apartment full of friends waiting for her to return from "reporting" on a non-existent fire.

Kara was tempted to skim the tops of the waves and douse herself in sea spray on the flight home but she really didn't want to have to explain to Sam why she was dripping wet.

("Rao, not like that!" she had to mentally scold the dirty part of her mind that was vividly reminding her of other possibilities for that phrase before putting on a spurt of speed to leave that thought somewhere over the middle of the Pacific Ocean.)

* * *

She could hear the argument as she traipsed down the corridor even though she had her glasses on, such was Alex's volume.

"That's not a real fucking word!"

Ah, that old chestnut. So they were playing scrabble then.

"Google it if you have to, but you really ought to trust me by now."

Lena's confidence was certainly well earned. Many-a word had been googled during scrabble games against the CEO but she'd never been wrong.

Once, after Kara had plied her with her favourite salad, Lena had confessed the secret to her scrabble mastery. You see, Lillian considered the game to be an almost ideal Luthor training ground - not quite as perfect as chess, but still good because it taught vocabulary, memory, elements of strategy and crucially, competitiveness. When Lena was ten she memorised every two and three letter word in the scrabble dictionary and enjoyed a four month reign of terror over Lex before he caught onto her trick. It was that knowledge that formed the basis of her scrabble domination to this day.

"For fuck's sake," Alex groaned at her phone screen while the CEO smirked victoriously and leaned over to record her 33 points for za on a triple word score.

"How much is she winning by?" Kara asked as she walked through the door into her apartment and Lena instantly caught her eye with a smugly knowing look.

"Ah..." Winn hummed, reaching for the scoresheet. "170 points."

"Just the usual bloodbath," James confirmed, wondering why he ever suggested scrabble in the first place as the Kryptonian took a seat next to her sister.

"Hey," Sam suddenly asked, "how was the fire?"

And then Kara had to clamp a hand over her mouth to stop herself from spraying liquid across the table because she'd chosen a very unfortunate time to take a gulp of water. It was just that Lena looking at her like _that_ made her mouth incredibly dry (and other places very wet but that was a Pacific Ocean kind of thought so she didn't go there).

"The fire was good!" Kara blurted out once she managed to swallow her drink without breaking into a coughing fit or spitting fluid everywhere, but she quickly realised her mistake when Sam looked at her askance. "I mean bad! The fire was bad. But not like, really bad, just like regular fire bad. Like no casualty house fire kind of bad, you know?"

Kara's brain spent several seconds screaming at her to stop talking before her mouth finally caught a clue and by then Alex was clearly exasperated and Lena was on the verge of open laughter.

"I can't say I do know," Sam began slowly, "but I'll take your word for it."

"Great!" Kara exclaimed far too enthusiastically, desperate to change the subject. "Whose turn is it?"

Four fingers pointed at Alex and the Krytonian's mouth fell open in pained understanding.

"Nobody minds if I help her, do they?"

Four heads shook frantically but Alex was too busy eating icing off the top of a cupcake to notice and get offended.

Two things about the eldest Danvers:

\- She hated being wrong

\- Drinking turned her spelling to shit

It was a predictably bad combination.

* * *

As a team, the Danvers sisters eventually managed to scrape together respectable scores in rounds two and three but it was largely redundant because Lena wiped the floor with everyone anyway.

("Who even knows the word 'quixotic'?" Alex had asked accusingly during round two, as Lena collected her 86 points thanks to a double letter score on the Q.)

When round three finished it was well after ten, everyone except Kara fell somewhere on the drunk scale between tipsy and sloshed, and there was broad consensus that it was about time to call it a night. Winn, James and Sam bid their goodbyes and trailed out the door one after the other, leaving Kara and Lena alone to deal with the Alexandra Danvers problem.

The highly inebriated Alexandra Danvers problem who looked like she could happily pass out at Kara's kitchen table but who refused to sleep on Kara's couch.

"I can... getta taxshi," she slurred as she tried and failed to get out of her chair.

"I doubt you can get a taxi when you can't even stand up," the CEO said with a wince while Kara looked down at her sister with a mix of pity and worry. The post-breakup drinking was starting to veer dangerously towards alcoholism.

"Do you want me to fly you home?" she offered softly, laying a gentle hand on Alex's shoulder.

"Pleash," the agent mumbled and Kara took it as an invitation to hook her hands under Alex's armpits to haul the woman out of her chair.

"You don't have to go," she said, glancing over Alex's shoulder at Lena who was hovering indecisively near the kitchen island, "if you don't want to."

"I might at least deal with this." The CEO gestured at the mess of bottles and food containers and game remnants. "It wouldn't be fair to leave it all to you."

"You don't have to do that!"

"I want to."

"I won't look a gift horse in the mouth then."

"Good," Lena said, cracking into a wry smile before continuing. "Now go get that one home."

* * *

Kara was back in less than five minutes later, popping through the door before Lena had even gathered all the bottles for recycling.

"Honey, I'm home!" she sing-songed before snorting at her own terrible joke.

"You were quick," Lena said, dropping an armful of trash in the bin. "Alex okay?"

"She fell asleep on the flight, didn't wake up when I dropped her off."

"Isn't it nice you don't have to lie to me about these things anymore."

There was something unidentifiable in Lena's tone and Kara was flooded with guilt for how long it had taken her to be honest (and for the fact she hadn't actually been planning to say anything when the truth came out, but the CEO didn't know about that yet).

The Kryptonian opened her mouth to apologise but Lena didn't let her get that far.

"I checked the news. No reports of a fire."

Rao.

The Luthor said it casually but Kara wasn't so oblivious that she couldn't realise this was a test of the newly established openness in their friendship and she didn't intend to fail.

"No, there was no fire."

Lena stared at the reporter with an inscrutable expression on her face and the tension in the room built to a point where it was like a physical pressure compressing Kara's ribcage.

"Where'd you go?"

She felt a literal sweat break out along her hairline as she fumbled around for an honest, but not too honest, explanation.

"Flying," was what she settled on. "I needed some air."

"Uh huh."

Lena sounded utterly disbelieving as she walked deliberately out of the kitchen, coming to a stop four feet away from the reporter by the table.

"You hid from me in a closet on Monday."

 _Rao._

Whatever she'd been expecting Lena to say next, that was not it and it sent Kara into a confounded mental tailspin.

"You saw that?!" she squeaked as Lena took one more step forward, bringing herself within three feet of the reporter.

"I did."

The CEO's intoxicating proximity, Kara's own tiredness and the unexpectedness of the situation was a dangerous cocktail and she could feel her already tenuous verbal filter dissolving further. That's why, when Lena next spoke with her voice all melodious and soothing, the Kryptonian's mouth tipped her off the edge of the precipice without ever giving her a chance to stop it.

"Kara, what's going on?"

"Comeonadatewi'me."

"I'm sorry, what?"

 _Rao!_


	6. Now or whenever

"I'm sorry, what?"

Lena sounded genuinely confused but the corners of her lips were curling upwards and there was a mischievous twinkle in her eye that Kara was too panicked to notice.

"Nothing," she squeaked, in a falsetto that would make any soprano proud as she wished that the ground would open and swallow her whole or, more realistically, that Supergirl would be needed for an emergency.

Look, Kara was an alien. She was an alien who landed on Earth at 13 years old and immediately got thrust into the cutthroat world of middle school so she was incredibly well acquainted with embarrassment. It was therefore indicative of how mortified she felt right now that she would rank this as one of her top five most embarrassing moments. It was even worse than the time she accidentally laser-eyed in the pool during swimming class and the boiling water made everyone think she'd let out a massive fart.

(She still got teased about that one in senior year.)

Her embarrassment also wasn't helped by the way that the CEO was thoughtfully sucking her bottom lip between her teeth. Kara was pretty sure that, between her blush and her arousal flush, her face could be used as a signal flare.

"Oh no no, I'm quite sure I heard something," Lena finally said, after leaving the reporter to stew for several seconds. She then tucked her hair behind her left ear and angled her head like she was preparing to listen intently. "There was a 'come on'... and maybe an 'a'... but I'm going to need you to repeat that last bit for me."

Kara's anxious heart was already racing in her chest and Lena's teasing tone only made it worse. Part of her seriously considered fleeing from her own house for the second time in one evening but Lena's inviting demeanour tempted her to follow the lead of her traitorous mouth instead. She aimed for confident but, in reality, landed on extremely tentative.

"Come... on a date with me?"

"Now?"

The CEO's ever expressive eyebrow quirked as she asked and the laugh she'd been holding back escaped mellifluously. Between that, the question and the way Lena's nose scrunched slightly as she smiled, Kara found herself tripping over her own tongue.

"Ummm... I wasn't thinking now, I was thinking dinner... or lunch... or brunch, or whenever... but I don't really know because your schedule is so busy and I haven't thought this through at all and I've never taken anyone on a date before and I don't know what I'm doing but we could do now if you want or I could call Jess and check when you're free or..."

She kind of wanted to die, figuratively speaking. All the times the Kryptonian had imagined this moment, she'd been smooth or charming or suave or anything other than this bumbling, unsure disaster that was happening instead. Apparently though, her mouth had a completely independent mind of its own that she had no control over and it would keep going and going and going no matter how severe her internal cringe became. And it wasn't only her mouth either - her hands were misbehaving as well. They kept gesticulating wildly and randomly as she talked at a mile a minute and she had no idea how to make any of it stop even though she desperately wanted to.

Lena just stood there, wearing a restrained half-smirk as she let the reporter ramble on until Kara had to pause for breath, at which point she stepped in to rescue the woman from herself.

"Kara," she started softly and the Kryptonian froze on the spot with a finger still wrapped around her glasses' frame where she'd been fidgeting. "Can I ask you one thing?"

"Anything!"

"Are you kidding?"

Lena's tone was light but Kara was acutely aware of the underlying insecurity and her heart hurt a little as she shook her head furiously until the CEO broke into a radiant smile.

"Then I'd love to go on a date with you. Now or whenever."

The reporter almost couldn't believe her ears.

"Really?"

Lena laughter was raucous this time and Kara stared doubtfully at her with eyes the size of dinner plates.

"Really," the CEO said, stepping forward slightly. "And for future reference, if you want to ask me out you definitely don't need to consult my assistant."

"I'll remember that for next time."

"There's going to be a next time?"

"I hope so... unless you're still holding a candle for Sam after your weekend of passion."

The reporter couldn't help but cross her arms protectively over her chest because she might have been cracking a joke but there was also a real fear there.

"You were eavesdropping," the CEO replied with slight amusement although her expression was analytical as she appraised Kara across the two and a half feet of space between them.

"Yes."

"Is that why you left?" Lena sounded partly concerned but mainly entertained and Kara broke into a pout as the CEO continued. "Were you jealous?"

"Maybe," the reporter admitted reluctantly and her pout deepened but then Lena was beaming at her and she had to grin back.

"Well..." the CEO drawled, stepping so far into Kara's personal space that she could almost feel her body heat. "Since you're wondering, the only one I'm holding a candle for is you."

"Really?"

"Really. Pretty much from the moment you walked into my office actually. Cliche, I know."

Lena looked completely calm and collected on the surface but if Kara had taken her glasses off, she would've heard the CEO's pulse thrumming rapidly beneath her skin. The only thing that gave away her true emotional state was her tongue darting out to moisten dry lips and that action was making it really hard for Kara to concentrate on anything else. Months of unacknowledged sexual frustration were reaching a crescendo and for once, her treacherous mouth pulled off a slick move.

"Does that mean you wouldn't mind if I kissed you, even though we haven't been on a date yet?"

"Well... Normally I'm big on decorum," Lena replied, reaching out to tantalisingly trail her fingers along the reporter's jawline, "but I think I could make an exception just this once."

Then she winked and Kara couldn't take it any more. She caught Lena's lips with her own as she wrapped her arms around the CEO's waist, reigning in her exuberant strength so she didn't accidentally crush any internal organs in her excitement (#superheroproblems).

The kiss was supposed to be short and sweet and new, and it was all that until it wasn't. Kara moved to pull away when she felt herself getting a little enthusiastic but then Lena curled her hand around the back of the blonde's neck and tugged her right back in. When the CEO's tongue dragged across her bottom lip, Kara nearly melted and she had to tighten her grip on Lena's waist so she didn't accidentally fall over. Kissing boys had certainly never felt quite like this.

When Lena's hands left her neck to trace slowly and deliberately over the Kryptonian's collarbones, Kara legitimately started to think that maybe just having sex on her lounge floor would be a great idea. Then palms were sliding down the top of her chest and Kara couldn't hold back a moan as Lena's hands inched towards exactly where she wanted them. Unfortunately, the noise yanked the CEO out of her aroused haze and Lena leapt backwards like she'd been electrocuted, staring at Kara with eyes wide and wild as the Kryptonian growled at the loss of contact.

"I'm very sorry, my hands are drunk."

Kara's growl turned to laughter when she realised Lena was being serious.

"Your hands?"

"Yes. All the vodka remember?" the CEO said, nodding sagely. "And the wine..."

"Just your hands?"

"Yes. The rest of me is only tipsy."

Lena was being so earnest about the whole thing and it was so completely adorable that Kara couldn't even tease her.

"Well, neither you nor your hands have anything to apologise for."

"Is that right?"

Lena's tone switched from solemn to sultry in a heartbeat and desire lanced through the reporter's core.

"Mhmm," was the only response she could manage as she gazed into the CEO's darkened eyes, enraptured by the sliver of pale green that surrounded a pupil far more dilated than the room's lighting required.

"We shouldn't," Kara eventually husked, breaking their sexual staring contest as Lena rolled her head to the side and tipped her chin upwards.

"No, definitely not."

"I really want to."

"Mm, that makes two of us."

The CEO's voice was low and gravelly which was doing the opposite of wonders for Kara's already flimsy self control.

"But we really shouldn't," she said again, like repetition might help somehow. Her resistance was futile though because throughout the exchange their faces had drifted within half an inch of each other and, as soon as Kara made the mistake of glancing at Lena's lips, they launched into doing exactly what they shouldn't.

* * *

Despite the minor slip up, they did show remarkable restraint overall. Lena's hands curled around the Kryptonian's hips and never strayed anywhere more risqué while Kara tangled her fingers in the dark locks along the nape of the CEO's neck.

"You have no idea how long I've been wanting to do that," Kara breathed once they finally parted, resting her forehead against Lena's as her eyes fluttered between closed and half-open.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Why now then?"

The question was filled with hopeful curiosity and Kara had to smile, even though she didn't know how to answer without embarrassing herself for the 40th time that night.

"We should thank Sam," is what she finally came up with and Lena's eyebrow twitched in a way that made Kara just want to kiss her again.

"What exactly does that mean?"

"Karaoke."

"Ohhhhh."

"Yup."

"One day soon, I want the full story," Lena said, lifting a hand off the Kryptonian's hip to run it through blonde hair instead. "But for tonight, I'll let you off the hook."

"You're so generous," Kara hummed, lost in the sensation of the CEO's fingers lightly massaging her scalp.

"You just caught me in a good mood," Lena retorted playfully and Kara scoffed out a chuckle. "I should probably get going though. It's late."

It was late. It was nearly eleven and Kara was actually exhausted after an intense day and an intense week. So yes, Lena probably should go and they probably should sleep in their separate beds but Kara desperately didn't want her to leave. She wasn't ready for this moment to end.

"Or you could stay."

The CEO stared pensively in response and Kara could only imagine what she was thinking. It wasn't like Lena hadn't slept over before, but this was a completely different situation and it felt like an interminably long time before she finally got her answer.

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yes. That sounds nice."

And then Kara was grinning and tugging the CEO forward to leave a chaste yet lingering kiss on her lips because why in Rao's name not?

* * *

That's how Kara ended up in bed an hour later with the leg of the most powerful women in National City slung over her pelvis and an arm chucked across her abdomen as Lena Luthor used her as some sort of alien body-pillow. She had to smile wryly in the dark about the fact that, of the two of them, it was the woman with insomnia who was out like a light, literally snoring softly against the reporter's shoulder.

She was tired (shattered, even) but Lena's presence left her so buzzed that she couldn't switch off. Being unable to sleep really wasn't that bad though, not when her crush was lying half on top of her and they had a date booked in (exact timing yet to be determined).

* * *

Detective Maggie Sawyer was still at the precinct at nearly midnight on a Saturday night, filling in report after report when her phone beeped on her desk.

 _11:57pm  
_ **[Little Danvers]** Guess what?

Maggie laughed dryly and shook her head at Kara's attempt to be mysterious.

 _12:01am  
_ If you don't tell me you've got a date then you're fired **[Maggie]**

* * *

Kara clicked the screen off and dropped her phone face down on her bedside table as soon as she sent her text (wincing when the clunk made Lena grunt in her sleep and rearrange slightly) so she didn't see the light of Maggie's reply when it popped through. Instead, she was slowly but finally drifting into unconsciousness and her last act before she joined Lena in the land of nod was to wonder whether a sleepover counted as a first date.

* * *

 **A/N: Kara got there in the end.**

 **Thanks for sticking with me on this one guys, it's been fun to write but it's nearly done now. I need opinions though because I'm not sure whether to wrap it up in one or two more chapters. I was going to just chuck up a short-ish epilogue and have that be it but if anyone really wants me to try to write a proper date, I could be convinced. Let me know.**

 **All mistakes are mine, as usual.**


	7. A doughnut kind of morning

**Every time I read through this I change something here, tinker with something there, adjust something somewhere else etc etc. I'm happy with the bones overall but I just keep fiddling with the specifics. I'm stepping away now though and posting it anyway so you're are just gonna have to cope with it in its current state, sorry.**

 **Hopefully it's actually fine and I'm just being picky but even if not, oh well. All mistakes are mine, as per usual.**

* * *

The rays of sunlight filtering through her curtains at 7:30 on Sunday morning roused Kara from a deep, dreamless sleep. As she blearily returned to consciousness, her whole body tensed when she felt an unidentified weight splayed across her back. Strength coiled in her muscles as she prepared to fight off her assailant until a familiar groan vibrated by her ear.

Lena.

The woman in question groaned again as she rolled off Kara to curl into a ball with her back to her bedfellow and the reporter's eyes widened as she stared at the mess of black hair on her pillow while Lena's breathing evened out as she dropped back to sleep.

Kara's heart rate slowly returned to normal once it sunk in she wasn't being attacked until she remembered how close she'd come to throwing her boss through a wall. That disturbing thought was enough to spike her pulse up but then, as her gaze trailed along the luminously pale column of Lena's neck, far more pleasant memories of the previous night flowed back and they gave her clinical tachycardia. By the time her eyes had scanned down Lena's spine and over the skin of her hip that peeked out where her tank top had ridden up, Kara's heart was galloping in her throat and her blood thrummed with a heat that was unusual even for a Kryptonian. It turned out that waking up in bed with the fairly scantily clad woman she'd been making out with 8 hours ago (who she was also sort of in unacknowledged love with) induced quite the physical reaction.

She was painfully tempted to run her fingers between the CEO's exposed shoulder blades but she didn't. She was quite aware of how little Lena had slept during the week so it was an immense relief to see her have a Sunday lie in. The last thing Kara wanted to do was end it prematurely because she had a compulsive desire to touch her.

To save Lena was from her questionable self-control, the reporter levered herself out of bed and made tracks to the kitchen but, before she left, she lingered in the entranceway to gaze down at her probably-more-than-a-best-friend. It was amazing how gorgeous Lena managed to look even with her mouth hanging half open and her mascara smudged because she never took it off properly the night before. Eventually though, Kara had to tear herself away because otherwise she was just going to climb right back under the covers and that would ruin Operation Let Lena Sleep.

On her way to the fridge (because of course she couldn't function without food) she swiped the CEO's jacket off the counter and swung it round her shoulders even though she wasn't cold. Just because she couldn't touch Lena herself, didn't mean she couldn't touch her things, right? Sure, it was cheesy and dopey and adolescent but Kara really didn't care. She was just glad Alex wasn't there to see her because the teasing would be insufferable.

Speaking of Alex, she thought as retrieved the Thai leftovers she'd been looking forward to since last night and started eating cold red curry straight from the carton, she did want to check in on her. Her sister wasn't taking the best care of herself at the moment, and she wanted to make sure that Alex at least had breakfast. Hungry and hungover was a terrible combination for anyone but especially for someone with access to as many weapons as Agent Danvers.

As luck would have it, when Kara was chucking her curry container in the trash, a call came through from the DEO. Two Ryxiras were having an olurian spine measuring contest in the middle of uptown and it was disrupting the Sunday markets. Great. Separating two malodorous and dim-witted alien ogres who were intent on proving their masculinity was exactly how Kara had envisaged spending her morning. Not.

But such was the life of a superhero so she crept back into her room to ease her supersuit out of her wardrobe, smiling when she saw Lena still folded into foetal position, contentedly comatose.

* * *

Some forty minutes later, the Ryxiras had been sent their separate ways with a stern lecture on appropriate locations for mating displays and Kara was flying to Alex's apartment in a mildly foul mood. Given that she was covered in distinctly unpleasant Ryxira slime, it was possible that her motives for visiting her sister were no longer purely altruistic. You see, Alex possessed a shower and Kara really didn't want to return to her own apartment stinking like the rank combination of rotting tuna and manure. She was trying to seduce Lena, not repel her.

The Kryptonian was climbing through Alex's lounge window when she heard the woman wretch violently in her bedroom. The benefit of having a superpowered alien sister is that she can run to the kitchen, grab a bowl and make it to the side of your bed all before you puke explosively over the floor.

"Oh my god, you smell disgusting," was the first thing Alex said once she finished emptying the contents of her stomach.

"Aw gee, thanks sis," Kara replied sarcastically as she placed the vomit bowl on the bedside table. "I love you too."

"I love you when you're not gross," the agent grunted as she gingerly lay back on her mattress.

"Well you're not exactly a basket of roses yourself," the reporter retorted, "but I love you anyway."

"That's because you're nice."

"Unlike you?"

"Exactly."

"Maybe you'd be nicer if you weren't drunk or hungover half the time," Kara suggested as she fished aspirin out of Alex's sock drawer.

"But then I'd have to be sober," the elder Danvers riposted before she dry swallowed the pills. "And who says I want to be nicer?"

Kara didn't dignify that statement with a response.

"Do you mind if I shower?"

"Jesus no, please go," Alex begged as she slung an arm over her eyes to block out the light that was assaulting her pounding brain. "If you hang around much longer I'll hurl again."

Kara couldn't stop her exasperated sigh as she stepped towards the door, snagging the sick bowl as she went. She was trying to be understanding of Alex's post-break up processing but parts of it were getting a little old.

"Hey," she called suddenly before she left her sister's bedroom. "You know, being nicer might be a good idea."

"Why?" Alex sounded rightfully suspicious.

"I was going to get you doughnuts..." she explained tantalisingly and her sister gasped. "But if you're going to be mean, I might have to reconsider."

Then Kara spun on her heel and marched out of the room, laughing as Alex shouted after her.

"I take it back!"

"I love you! Even when you smell like shit!"

"Please get me doughnuts!"

* * *

As payback for the fact she was cleaning up Alex's vomit for at least the fifth time this month, Kara left the agent hanging on the doughnut question until after she emerged from her luxuriously (and necessarily) long shower. She washed herself four times with three different soaps until she was satisfied that she had eliminated all traces of Ryxira and then she lingered under the water for another couple of minutes just because Alex's water pressure was much better than her own (and it wasn't going on her water bill).

When she wandered back into her sister's room (clad only in a towel because there was no way she was getting back in that suit until Winn had dry cleaned it at least twice), she found Alex lying on her stomach with her head at the foot of the bed, staring at her pitifully.

"You tried to get up, didn't you?"

"And failed," the agent confirmed, putting on her best pout. It wasn't quite Kara Danvers standard, but it wasn't bad. "Please get me doughnuts."

"Fine," the Kryptonian huffed with faked aggrievement. "But only if you lend me some clothes because I'm not going out naked."

"You could go out in a towel," Alex tried to joke but Kara just fixed her with a look.

"Okay, fine," the elder Danvers eventually groaned, waving her hand at her wardrobe like she was doing her sister a favour. "Help yourself."

"You know," Kara said gently, as she started rummaging through Alex's drawers looking for anything that wasn't totally incongruent with her style, well aware that she was raising a sensitive subject, "it's probably time to throw out that body wash Maggie left behind."

"Or give it back to her," she added as an afterthought while Alex rolled onto her back and covered her face with her hands.

"I'm not talking about this until you bring me doughnuts."

Kara was glad for super-hearing because Alex's voice was so muffled by her palms that the Kryptonian doubted she would've heard her without it.

"Powdered sugar and Boston creams?" she asked as she filched a workable pair of blue jeans and a plain white tee that probably hadn't seen the light of day for years.

"You know me so well," Alex replied, freeing her mouth from beneath her hands so her voice rang out clearly, but leaving her eyes behind her fingers.

"I am your sister," Kara reasoned as she tugged the tee on over her head. She was glad that her suit was impermeable enough to have saved her underwear because this shirt was far too thin and form-fitting to wear without a bra.

"Adoptive sister."

"Excuse me, aren't you supposed to be being nice?"

Alex evidently decided to take 'if you don't have anything kind to say, don't say anything at all' approach to being nice because in response her form just lay motionless, not uttering a sound. Kara, meanwhile, was wrestling with jeans. Borrowing pants from her skinny sister who was also shorter than her brought with it logistical difficulties but eventually she did manage to squeeze her legs in without breaking anything. The elder Danvers was still a silent, immobile lump on her mattress as Kara pulled on the tattered sneakers that were the only pair of shoes she could find that fit.

"I'm taking your credit card," Kara warned as she prepared to leave. "I left my wallet at home."

Alex grunted her assent instead of putting in the effort to use actual words and Kara shook her head as she tucked the card in her front pocket.

"I'll see you soon," she promised before exiting the room and Alex didn't bother to even grunt.

* * *

By the time Kara returned twenty minutes later from the great little doughnut shop down the street, Alex had managed to haul herself out of bed to take up tragic residence on the couch under the fluffiest throw she owned. The younger Danvers dropped the doughnut bag intended for the elder on the couch cushion beside her and stared sympathetically at the sad sight in front of her as Alex mournfully tore into a Boston cream.

"Arr-ya fee tay?" Alex mumbled around a massive mouthful of pastry and custard. Only years of experience allowed Kara to decipher that she was asking 'are you free today'.

Figuring out what to say in response was actually a far bigger challenge than decoding the question itself. She most definitely was not free today but she was also extremely reluctant to share what she planned to be busy with.

"Ahhhh... no... sorry," she started as she prepared to lie through her teeth. "Snapper's really on my tail about this article and I have to finish it before Monday."

"Oh." Alex failed miserably at her noble attempt to hide her disappointment but it was sweet that she tried. "What's the article about?"

Rao, Kara cursed internally. Lying had been going so well until she got pressed for details.

"Oh... um... the local cattery."

Oh dear.

"Snapper's riding your ass about an article on a cattery?"

"It's a, um... big story."

Kara nervously toyed with the arm of her glasses as Alex drilled her with an interrogatory stare.

"How much of a story can there be at a cattery?"

"Uhhh, lots?" The Kryptonian barely contained a wince and wasted a few seconds dolefully wishing Alex would just let it go before stumbling her way through a horribly implausible explanation. "You know... um... drugs, and that sort of thing. Adopt a kitten, get a side of cocaine!"

Lying had been a mistake, Kara thought as she laughed anxiously while Alex blinked slowly and suspiciously, Boston cream hanging forgotten between her fingers.

"Anyway!" Kara exclaimed, clapping her hands together with false enthusiasm. "I should get cracking. Hard hitting journalism won't punch anyone by itself!"

She should be banned from talking.

"Go get 'em, tiger," Alex encouraged skeptically, clearly unconvinced. Her sister might be many things but silver-tongued devil was not among them. She couldn't be bothered calling the reporter on it though so she turned her attention back to munching on doughnut while Kara bumbled around the lounge collecting her stuff.

"I'll call you tonight, okay?" the Kryptonian promised as she slipped Alex's sneakers back on. "And we'll definitely catch up tomorrow."

"Thanks."

The agent's voice was small but genuine and Kara felt terribly guilty for leaving but she just couldn't stay. Not now, not today, not this specific morning. As much as she wanted to keep her sad and lonely sister company, she also had a (hopefully still sleeping) Lena waiting for her at her apartment and she'd never intended to be gone this long. It was already 9:30 and she was going to need a cab home because she had no suit to fly in.

"Take care of yourself, hey?" Kara prompted as she hovered behind the back of the couch. "And enjoy your doughnuts."

"I always do!" Alex yelled after a pause, as the younger Danvers semi-reluctantly reached the door. They both knew she was talking about the doughnuts and not the self-care.

* * *

When Lena rejoined the land of the living, feeling disoriented yet unusually refreshed, light shone through the window at an angle that suggested it was mid-morning but that couldn't possibly be right. Once her brain felt sufficiently awake, she propped herself up on her elbows and squinted through the brightness to scan the surroundings of Kara's bedroom.

Speaking of Kara, where was she?

When Lena's head creaked to the side and confirmed that the Kryptonian wasn't in bed, she wasn't concerned because mysterious disappearances were something she'd acclimated to with a superhero as a best friend. To be honest, she was relieved to be able to privately collect her composure after the events of the previous night. Her primary emotional reaction though, was actually shock that she'd slept through Kara's departure. She genuinely couldn't remember the last time she'd slept for this long and it was thoroughly discombobulating.

It was also hard on her bladder, which had started screaming as soon as it noticed that Lena was conscious enough to tend to its needs and as much as she didn't want to get up, she really needed to pee.

* * *

When Kara got home she caught Lena in her full morning glory, much to the CEO's good-natured displeasure.

The reporter clattered through her front door right as Lena was shambling out of the bedroom and they both stopped in their tracks when they spotted one another. Lena instantly stiffened, pulling herself up to her full height and crossing her arms over her chest as she tried to salvage some dignity out of the situation. Unfortunately for her, the way her hair was mussed into a dark bird's nest atop her head and the green, sheep patterned pyjamas shorts that ensconced her upper thighs somewhat ruined the 'intimidating executive' vibe she was aiming for. Kara, meanwhile, couldn't stop staring because Lena was an alluringly captivating combination of hot and adorable but the blonde lacked the confidence to do anything about it.

It was the CEO who finally broke the tension.

"I going to go wee."

"You go do that," the reporter replied with a chuckle while colour crept into Lena's cheeks as she realised that thousands of Luthor euros worth of elocution lessons had gone to waste because apparently Kara Danvers' awkwardness was infectious.

"I am going to go to that," Lena reiterated staidly like she wasn't actively embarrassing herself right that very second, before walking proudly into the bathroom without a backwards glance.

Kara passed the wait by smugly arranging herself at the table, placing the doughnuts on top while hiding a small surprise under her chair. She was so absorbed in her satisfaction that she was able to fluster the usually unflappable Lena Luthor that she didn't even sneak the chocolate frosted pastry she'd been hankering after for an hour.

To Kara's slight disappointment, the CEO was moderately more put together when she finally emerged from the bathroom eight minutes later. A brush had clearly been combed through her hair because it was no longer an unruly mess, and the stray traces of yesterday's makeup had been removed but she was still trapped in the Kryptonian's pyjamas. She was doing her best to look mature and serious but the cartoon sheep shorts were a substantial impediment.

"I brought breakfast," Kara said, stifling a giggle as Lena stepped over to the table, her gait majestic and her outfit distinctly not.

"Your second breakfast, yes?" the CEO clarified as she delicately took a seat and eyed the unidentifiable paper bags.

"Of course!"

"You brought doughnuts?" Lena asked as she crinkled a bag open and peeked inside. "For breakfast?"

"I personally believe that doughnuts are appropriate for all meals," Kara argued, snickering at the exasperated resignation on Lena's face as the CEO muttered "of course you do."

"But," she continued, reaching under her chair (not missing the way Lena's eyes flicked to her cleavage as she leaned over), "I know you're all about your five plus a day so..."

The reporter revealed her surprise with a triumphant flourish and Lena's lips curled into a smile as she drank in the sight of her favourite fruit salad with its magical dressing.

"You know how much I love this."

"I do," Kara gloated as the CEO pulled the fruit carton across the table with a joyful gleam in her eyes. Fruit-maestro Guido Pella and his stall were conveniently opposite the best doughnut shop in Alex's part of town but if they weren't Kara would've flown to Metropolis if she had to, just to see that look on Lena's face. The Kryptonian wasn't done though. "I also know how much you love glazed doughnuts."

"You didn't," Lena said, head snapping up so she could stare at the reporter as she slowly unfurled the second pastry bag.

"I did."

"When I get diabetes, I'm blaming you."

"Fair enough."

The CEO didn't reply because her gob got stuffed with both fruit and baked deliciousness and, unlike the Danvers sisters, she had an aversion to talking with her mouth full. Kara took advantage of the conversational pause to tear into her own doughnut which was just as glorious and chocolatey as she'd been anticipating.

* * *

"I have a question," the CEO said a few minutes later, breaking the comfortable silence that the pair had been happily eating in.

"Mm?"

"Why aren't you wearing your own clothes?"

Kara had to look up from her second breakfast at that.

"How do you know these aren't mine?"

Images flashed through Lena's mind of how those jeans were practically painted onto Kara's ass and she had to purse her lips so she didn't say anything blatantly inappropriate.

"If I'd seen them before," she began, tongue darting out to lick her top lip before she finished, "I'm pretty sure I'd remember."

Bless Kara's innocent heart, she had the audacity to look confused for a second before she caught on to the obvious implication and inhaled doughnut crumbs down the wrong pipe.

"They're Alex's," the Kryptonian eventually spluttered once her coughing fit died down, reaching for her glass of water to wash away the end of her near asphyxiation.

"Why are you wearing Alex's clothes?" Lena probed, sucking a piece of pineapple between her lips in a move Kara found highly distracting.

"Got covered in Ryxira slime," the reporter explained once she managed to swallow her water without choking for the second time in two minutes. It was becoming clear that food and drink consumption around Lena Luthor was a health hazard.

"I'm not exactly sure what that is, but it sounds hideous," the CEO replied with exaggerated sympathy and Kara had to laugh.

"You have no idea."

"I don't want to have an idea."

"They don't call you a genius for nothing."

"Not to brag, but I think they call me a genius for the PhD by 22," Lena drawled, swinging a doughnut around her finger for dramatic effect. "Oh, and my 37 patents."

"You're totally bragging, Dr. Luthor," Kara husked, fixating on where the CEO's finger hooked suggestively through the doughnut hole and Lena smirked briefly before heaving out a groan.

"Urgh, if only that didn't remind me of my mother."

"Ew."

"Tell me about it."

"Is that why you go by Ms?" Kara asked as the CEO sullenly chomped down on a piece of mango.

"Essentially," Lena confirmed, pushing away her now empty fruit salad container. "That, and the fact that men are emasculated enough by a female CEO without being reminded I'm more academically accomplished than they are."

"That's so unfair."

"You get used to it."

"You shouldn't have to get used to it!" Kara exclaimed passionately, tapping the tabletop with an indignant hand.

"I agree," Lena replied with a shrug. "But I can't single-handedly eliminate misogyny in corporate America and if I got angry every time some man-child was a sexist prick I would be in an unsustainably perpetual state of rage."

The Kryptonian couldn't argue the logic but that didn't mean she wasn't still apoplectic about the prejudice Lena faced in the course of doing her job. The CEO could sense Kara's building fury and decided to try to defuse the situation.

"Anyway," she started, before pausing to take a bite of her second glazed doughnut because it was begging to be eaten and she couldn't turn it down. "Do you really want to be talking about work on the weekend?"

"Not particularly," Kara conceded, munching on a doughnut of her own. "But I didn't realise you even knew what the weekend was."

"I know you like to accuse me of being a workaholic," Lena retorted, "but I'm not that bad."

In response, the reporter just looked at her knowingly and she couldn't keep up the charade.

"Okay, fine, I am that bad," the CEO acknowledged. "But if the stock market takes Sunday off, then I suppose I can too. Once in a while."

"Once in a while," Kara parroted mockingly and Lena chucked a lump of doughnut at her. The Danvers sisters were teaching her bad habits. Lillian would've had her head for throwing food. The small rebellion against her mother's standards felt good though, in a teenaged kind of way and also, Kara deserved it.

"Okay," the Kryptonian said as she chewed Lena's pastry hunk because she wasn't one to pass on an offer of food. "If we're not talking about work let's talk about what we're doing today."

"What _we're_ doing, huh?"

"Well..." Kara began nervously before resisting the urge to fidget with her glasses and embracing the coolness of her inner Maggie instead. "You're free, I'm free and I recall making an agreement last night so..."

"I believe your recollection is correct," Lena replied with her eyes glued to Kara's lips as she remembered exactly the kind of 'agreements' they'd made yesterday. "What's the plan then, boss?"

"Ooh, role reversal."

The intensity of Lena's gaze only strengthened at that comment.

"You did ask me out."

"I did, didn't I?" Kara sounded like she couldn't believe it and Lena looked up with a chuckle as the Kryptonian continued. "Well, you probably need to wear something other than my pjs."

"Really?!" the CEO exclaimed with fake shock, spreading her arms wide and glancing down at her attire. "I thought this would make for great everyday wear. It could even have crossover appeal in the business market. Don't you think I'd fit right in at the office like this?"

"Oh for sure," Kara tried to agreed, but her snort of laughter gave away her true opinion. "I'm sure all the misogynists would take you completely seriously."

Lena's face took on a vacant expression as she imagined Carlton Hemings' reaction if she turned up to a board meeting in pyjama shorts before she broke into laughter so hard that tears came to her eyes.

"Point taken," she wheezed once the worst of her hysteria passed as Kara chewed on a Boston cream, feeling very pleased with herself. Making Lena laugh would never get old.

"I suppose it's time for my walk of shame then," the CEO said as her breathing returned to normal and she slowly slid her chair back from the table, rising to her feet. "Thank you for breakfast."

"Anytime, and I could take you on a flight of shame if you'd rather," Kara offered, perfectly aware of Lena's recalcitrance towards aerial transportation.

"Oh no no," Lena replied, with a wave of her hand and a less blasé tone than she would've liked as she stepped out from the table. "That won't be necessary."

"You wouldn't want to bother me, right?" the Kryptonian called teasingly after the retreating CEO as Lena walked across the lounge.

"Exactly!" she shouted back without turning around before she rounded the corner into the reporter's bedroom.

Kara kept herself occupied by clearing away the breakfast detritus while Lena prepared to depart by re-cladding herself in yesterday's clothes and applying enough make up to convince her doorman that she'd spent the night at work. When the CEO re-entered the lounge, Kara had to take a few moments to admire her beauty before she could speak.

"I'll pick you up at three," the Kryptonian finally said, leaning casually against the kitchen counter even though she felt anything but casual given that her mouth was doing that independent decision making thing again.

"Is that right?"

"Mhmm."

Well she was committed now.

"What are we doing?" Lena asked curiously as she walked past the dining table to collect her handbag off the floor before she headed for the door.

"It's a surprise."

It was going to be a surprise for both of them, given that Kara had no idea what she was doing either, but Lena didn't need to know that.

"My, aren't you a woman of mystery," the CEO replied liltingly and Kara laughed awkwardly as she moved to join Lena near the exit.

"I better get going," Lena continued, "but see you at three?"

"See you at three," the Kryptonian confirmed and her body hummed with anticipatory jitters as the CEO stared at her with a slightly calculating look in her eye.

"It's a date."

"Literally."

Lena let out a short laugh before silence fell between the pair as they lingered a foot apart in Kara's doorway. They were still tentatively figuring out how to navigate their changed dynamic and neither woman quite knew how to say goodbye. In the end Lena was the bold one, stepping forward to press a feather light kiss to the corner of Kara's mouth before pulling back with a wink and spinning to stride regally off down the corridor. The reporter missed her as soon as she was gone and leaned against the doorframe to watch her go, replaying the feeling of the Lena's lips on hers until the CEO was long out of sight.

* * *

It was when she heard Lena's driver pull up outside that the panic set in.

Then, Kara dropped her glasses back onto her nose and rushed into her apartment, accidentally slamming the door behind her as her eyes flicked instantly to the clock on the wall. If she was Alex she would've released a string of expletives at least 40 words long. She had a date with _Lena Luthor_ in less than four hours and absolutely no plan. It was a disaster and all she could think was that she really needed her lesbian fairy godmother to come to the rescue.

In pursuance of that aim, the Kryptonian raced over to her bedroom and yanked her phone off its charger before punching in her passcode. It was then that she finally saw Maggie's text and she laughed sardonically as she hit dial.

Sappho must have been watching over her because the detective picked up on the third ring.

"Hey Li'l D," Maggie started but she barely got the full greeting out before Kara was steamrolling over the top of her.

"I'm not fired and that's the problem!"

"Let me guess, she said yes and you're freaking out."

Maggie sounded thoroughly amused and the reporter didn't particularly appreciate it.

"Yes," she whined, "but don't tease me, just tell me what to do."

"No can do, kid," the detective replied and Kara literally whimpered.

"What do you mean no can do?!"

"I mean, it's got to come from you," Maggie explained as the reporter sighed. "Otherwise it wouldn't be authentic and it wouldn't work."

"But I don't know what to do!" Kara begged, pacing angstily into her lounge. "And Lena's a billionaire, I can't afford anything that would impress her!"

"Trust yourself. You know her, you'll think of something," the detective promised sincerely and the Kryptonian rolled her eyes at the platitude. "And in case you hadn't noticed, Lena doesn't give a shit about money. She gives a shit about you."

"That's nice but I'm picking her up at three!"

"Ha, okay... that is... yeah..." the detective started haltingly as she processed the exact predicament Kara had dropped herself in, before she attempted to be reassuring. "Well hey, I believe in you!"

"That's not helpful!" the reporter complained and Maggie chuckled.

"It's all I got. Sorry kid."

"You were supposed to be helpful!"

"You'll thank me later."

"I will not," the Kryptonian huffed immaturely before spitefully hanging up without giving Maggie a chance to respond.

Once she cut the detective off, Kara hoofed her phone at the couch hard enough to release a little frustration but not so hard as to do any damage before collapsing onto the cushions next to the device. Her eyes flicked back to the clock and she groaned when she saw that her time remaining had ticked to three and a half hours.

It wasn't that she wasn't excited (because she was buzzing) it was that she was too excited. She was desperate to do this right but she also convinced she was going to mess the whole thing up and it was stressing her out. She thought asking Lena would be the challenging part but Rao, asking had nothing on date planning - especially date planning on a severe time budget.

She was going to need a miracle to pull this off.

* * *

 **My dudes... What have you done? I was so nearly finished. Like, had started the epilogue level of nearly finished and now you've gone and set me off again. I'm not really complaining though, I had fun with this. I can't resist Danvers family banter, I'm sorry.**

 **Life is getting a bit hectic in the lead up to Christmas so I might leave you hanging after this a little longer than usual but the actual date is coming, I promise and I hope you're having happy holidays regardless of what you celebrate.**


	8. It's like the snickers ad says

**So I was writing this and then suddenly it was like 7K words long which seemed a little excessive and since the second half still needs a little work, I though I might as well go ahead and post this bit. Either I'm being an asshole because there's a minor cliffhanger or I'm not being an asshole because I'm not making you wait even longer. You decide**

* * *

 _1:37pm  
_ What's the dress code for this afternoon? Other than 'not pyjamas' **[Lena]**

The CEO fired the text off as a last resort while she stood in the middle of her cavernous walk-in wardrobe, wrought with indecision. How could one possibly own so many clothes and still feel like she had nothing to wear?

 _1:41pm  
_ **[Kara]** Casual

 _1:47pm  
_ **[Kara]** And like jeans casual. Not suit without a jacket casual

Lena had to laugh when that second reply popped through. Kara knew her far too well sometimes.

On the one hand, jeans casual was a very helpful instruction because it eliminated about 92% of her clothes from consideration. On the other hand, it meant she only had a tiny, unsatisfactory selection left to choose from.

The CEO heaved out a long suffering sigh as she contemplated her quandary and wandered to the back of her closet to peruse her infrequently visited casual options. When she got there, she flicked through her few pairs of jeans and the pile of nerd shirts she'd collected over the years before picking one slightly at random. If Kara wanted casual, she was getting casual.

* * *

Speaking of Kara, she got her miracle - just not in a form she ever would've expected. She wasn't surprised by the event itself (given her propensity for excessive force and destruction), but the inspiration it provided was a brilliant bolt from the blue.

You see, she broke a plate.

She vacuumed her whole apartment, dusted the window sills and washed dishes by hand in an attempt to induce inspiration via cleaning, all to no avail. But then, as she dried her crockery (with her last clean dishcloth because Rao she needed to do laundry), her phone beeped and she got such a fright that she squeezed far too hard and absolutely shattered a plate into hundreds of shards all over her kitchen floor.

Then it hit her.

The perfect idea.

Just in time too, because Lena had messaged asking for the dress code and if it that plate had remained intact, Kara wouldn't have had an answer.

* * *

An hour or so later, the Kryptonian was the emotional equivalent of a technicolour light show as she approached Lena's building with excitement wrapping around apprehension, anxiety swirling with exhilaration and trepidation dancing with anticipation. It was a veritable symphony of feelings that reached a crescendo as she entered Lena's lobby and gave her name to the doorman, but when the CEO swaggered out of the elevator everything else melted away as a flood of affection overtook her. Then, when Lena came closer and the words on her grey shirt sharpened into focus, Kara dissolved into a fit of giggles.

 _Of course I talk to myself  
_ _Sometimes I need expert advice_

Kara didn't even try to hide how immensely amused she was, asking "where did you get that?" before the CEO had even come to a stop.

"Oh, this?" Lena replied with a laugh of her own, glancing down at her top. "Lex gave it to me, you know, before he became a murderous asshole."

"It's amazing." Kara deliberately glossed over the murderous asshole mention because Lex Luthor ruining the mood on her date was the last thing she was interested in. "I didn't know you owned a joke t-shirt."

"I have a few actually," the CEO stated matter-of-factly, as though she wasn't sharing information that viciously piqued Kara's curiosity, "and you did say casual, after all."

The reporter couldn't stop her eyes from roaming over Lena before she replied, from the crew cut shirt to the burgundy jeans to the brown ankle boots with half as much heel as usual, which meant they seemed the same height for once.

"You really nailed the brief."

"I always do," Lena purred, silky smooth and seductive, with the slightest twitch of her eyebrow that drove Kara a little crazy. Heat burned beneath her skin and coiled in her gut as she momentarily considered skipping the date entirely so Lena could get on with nailing her brief, but she had a plan and she intended to stick to it. Brief nailing could come later.

(It would need to come eventually because Rao, she needed to come eventually or she was literally going to combust.)

"On the topic of clothes," Lena continued, "you're still wearing Alex's."

"You seemed to appreciate them earlier," Kara replied, trying her own hand at flirting, "so I thought you wouldn't mind."

"Oh I definitely don't mind," the CEO said, dragging her gaze from Kara's head to her toes and back as the reporter swallowed thickly, "but should we go?"

That's when Kara realised that minutes has passed and they were still standing in the middle of Lena's lobby with her doorman surreptitiously spying on them out the corner of his eye. Oops.

* * *

"So, where are we going?" the CEO asked lightly as they climbed into a cab.

"I already told you it's a surprise," Kara scolded after she gave the driver an address that Lena didn't recognise.

"Can't you give me a hint?"

"Nope."

"What if I ask nicely?"

"Not even then," the reporter insisted even though she had to avoid Lena's inquisitive eye because otherwise she'd spill the beans.

"You're such a tease."

"That's how you like me."

"Mmm... true."

"Have you had lunch?" Kara asked slightly croakily as Lena unsubtly cleared her throat.

"I haven't, no," the CEO replied. "But I'm assuming you have, or else we wouldn't be sitting patiently in the back of taxi making pleasant conversation."

"Excuse me, what are you implying?"

"It's like the snickers ad says, Miss Danvers. You're not you when you're hungry," Lena explained in her best 'addressing an underling' tone and Kara found herself spluttering indignantly.

"I can go more than four hours without food without turning into a rage monster!" she protested, while the corner of Lena's mouth twitched with a suppressed a smile.

Once the reporter could look past her offence (which admittedly took a minute), she spotted the expression on Lena's face and gasped.

"You're winding me up!"

"Guilty as charged," the CEO confessed brightly as she cracked into a grin before switching to a more conciliatory tone. "I'm sorry, I couldn't resist. You get this disgruntled crinkle right there," she explained, running her index finger along the crinkle in question, "and its adorable."

"You think I'm adorable?" Kara asked smugly as Lena reluctantly withdrew her hand.

"Have you met yourself? Of course I think you're adorable."

"Lena Luthor, PhD, CEO of both L-Corp and CatCo Worldwide Media and chairwoman of the board of the Luthor Children's Hospital, thinks I'm adorable?"

"Yes," the CEO sighed with an affectionate roll of her eyes. "I think you're utterly adorable. But, I don't only think you're adorable," she said, twisting in her seat to look at Kara directly before she continued, "I also think you, Kara Danvers, BA, CatCo reporter, and you know what, are extraordinary. And not only because you're literally more than ordinary."

"Alright fine then, I forgive you for calling me a rage monster," Kara scoffed bashfully, with an 'aw shucks' shrug while her face morphed into the alien embodiment of the red-cheeked smiling emoji.

"Technically," Lena shot back, "you called yourself a rage monster."

"That's beside the point."

"Is it?"

"Yes."

Lena barked out a short, rough laugh in response before switching to an argument she knew she could win.

"I'm right about lunch though, aren't I?"

"Also yes," Kara admitted, much to the CEO's satisfaction. She tried to be sullen but it was hard with Lena smiling at her like that.

"I knew it."

"But don't worry, I have plenty of room for second lunch," the reporter offered reassuringly as if Lena would ever have worried about such a thing. "I'm going to feed you the best Korean BBQ you've ever had."

"Did you just give away the surprise?"

"No, the surprise comes later."

"Ooh, building the suspense."

"Absolutely," Kara agreed with a laugh, admiring the CEO's profile as the cityscape flashed past the window behind her. "Hey, Lena?"

"Yeah?" she replied, intrigue burning in Lena's eyes at Kara's abruptly softened tone as she turned to look at the earnest Kryptonian.

"You know," Kara began before repositioning her glasses on her nose in a well-practiced nervous tic. "I think you're extraordinary too, and not only because of what you've done."

The reporter was rewarded with such a captivatingly radiant smile that she didn't notice that the cab had rolled to a stop until after Lena had handed over a fistful of bills.

"Wait, what are you doing?!"

"I'm paying for the taxi," Lena said with amusement as she swung the car door open and put a foot out onto the pavement. "Did it look like something else?"

"No, I can see that," Kara said, following the CEO out of cab. "But I'm taking you out, not the other way around!"

"I'm rich, you're not," Lena stated with a nonchalant shrug as the reporter joined her on the sidewalk and the taxi pulled away. "It makes sense that I pay."

"It's not about sense! It's about principle!" Kara argued with her trademark passion and Lena had to bite the inside of her cheek so she didn't laugh. Teasing, however, she couldn't resist.

"I could wire you ten grand," she suggested casually as she quick stepped after the reporter who'd started striding into the park they had been dropped beside, "then you could pay for everything if that would help your ego. Sorry, I mean your principles."

Kara stopped in her tracks and spun around to face the CEO who was putting on her best impression of innocence, and Lena briefly worried that she'd taken it too far until the reporter broke into a fond snicker.

"You're ridiculous," she said, gently shoving Lena's shoulder before turning to resume walking.

"I'm serious!" the CEO argued and Kara just shook her head so Lena doubled down as they walked between rows of beautifully mature oak and macrocarpa. "I make more in a day than you do in a year and that's only from my salary. I own CatCo, remember? I know how dire our junior reporters' pay is but I can't just give you, specifically, a raise because I like you. Appalling nepotism isn't my style, you know? But I can at least shout you a cab ride and some food without being unethical."

"You like me?"

"That's what you got from that?"

"Yup," Kara confirmed, popping the P with an enormous grin on her face. "So, you like me huh?"

"We're on a date, aren't we?"

"Yes, but you still haven't answered my question."

"Well then, to answer your question, yes I like you. A lot, actually and I don't know why you sound so surprised."

"Because I am surprised!" the reporter exclaimed as they reached the end of the tree lined path and entered a cobblestone paved courtyard. "But I like you a lot too."

"Well isn't that lucky," Lena replied as they passed an elaborate water fountain. "But I have to say, I am also surprised."

"Really?" Kara asked, throwing an incredulous side eye at the CEO. "I don't think I was the best at being subtle."

"In restrospect, you weren't," Lena chuckled "but I thought you were straight."

"I thought you were straight too!"

"I'm really not sure how you got that impression."

"I don't know... I just..." Kara fumbled, waving her hand loosely in the entertained Luthor's direction. "I mean, look at you!"

"That's what Alex said," Lena retorted with an undignified snort that make Kara want to kiss her senseless.

"Yeah and she and I both thought she was straight as well, so what does that say?"

"That Eliza taught you two a lot but How To Spot A Lesbian 101 wasn't part of the curriculum."

"It was a serious gap in our education," Kara laughed as they reached the edge of the courtyard and turned down the less picturesque path that lead to the car park, "I should talk to her about that. But I'm still paying for lunch, by the way."

"Because of your principles?" the CEO asked with a mocking eyebrow hoisted high.

"Exactly!" the reporter enthused. "And I'm not willing to compromise them, even for you."

"Fine," Lena sighed, "I'll give you this one."

Kara genuinely fist pumped in celebration and Lena shook her head with a laugh as she laid eyes on what appeared to be a teemingly busy food truck in the distance. The sight made her stomach grumbled embarrassingly at the prospect of food. When Kara swung around and started walking backwards so she could appraise Lena with an piercing gaze, the CEO knew she was in for it.

"Are you hungry?" the reporter asked innocently and when Lena nodded suspiciously, Kara pounced.

"Well that explains why you've been grouchy."

Lena opened her mouth to protest but Kara wasn't done.

"Remember Ms. Luthor, it's like the snickers ad says. You're not you when you're hungry."

"I haven't been grouchy!" the CEO argued and it was Kara's turn to quirk a skeptical eyebrow.

"Just a little," she argued in return, holding her thumb and forefinger an inch apart as Lena scoffed. "But it's okay, I'm going to feed you something life changing."

"You're setting the bar high," the CEO replied as Kara finally spun back to walking the right way round.

"That won't be a problem," the reporter shot back confidently as they joined the queue. "Coreano is like... the pole vaulter of the food truck world."

"That's quite the mental image," Lena said, her mouth starting to water at the aromas emanating from the sizzling grill.

Kara knew the menu off by heart so she talked Lena through it as the line inched forward towards truck (which was doing roaring business for 3:30-ish on a Sunday afternoon). In the end, Lena abdicated ordering responsibility and trusted Kara to pick what was best since she seemed to be such an expert. Her decision was validated when they reached the front of queue and the woman manning the till brightly greeted the reporter by name.

"Kara!"

"Jin-hee, hi!"

"It's been too long!"

"I know, I'm sorry, work's been hectic. I haven't had the chance to come down here."

"Ah well, you're here now. My bank account and I both thank you!"

Lena watched the exchange with deep amusement. She was wondering exactly how much money Kara had to have spent for her presence to be explicitly linked to the business' profits when she was unexpectedly dragged into the conversation.

"And who's your friend?" Jin-hee asked, before addressing Lena directly. "I haven't seen you before."

The CEO was bizarrely stumped. Dump her in a room full of the most powerful people in the country and she'd flit her way around like the nimblest of social butterflies but, faced with a friendly enquiry from a food truck cashier, she found herself fumbling.

"Me? Oh! I'm, um... Lena. I'm Lena."

Kara looked at her with a closed lipped smirk that was threatening the break into a full-blown smile and Lena felt her cheeks burn slightly. She much preferred it when Kara was being the socially awkward one. That was cute, this was embarrassing.

"Well Lena, you must try the kimchi fries," Jin-hee insisted, pulling the CEO out of her introspection.

"Ah, yes, Kara mentioned them," Lena replied. "Very enthusiastically actually."

"Because they're amazing," the reporter emphasised and Jin-hee concurred with a firm nod. That was when the cashier noticed the malcontented mutterings of the other customers in the queue who were becoming irritated by the conversational dawdling.

"Two orders of kimchi fries then, yes?" Jin-hee asked. "Anything else?"

* * *

Fifteen minutes later they were seated at a shaded picnic table beneath a magnificent ponderosa pine, cardboard baskets of fries, short ribs and a Korean spiced pork burrito arranged in front of them.

"You're right," Lena practically moaned after her first bite of rib, wiping a spot of sauce off the corner of her lip, "this is the best Korean BBQ I've ever had."

"I told you it was life changing," Kara gloated, her mouth full of kimchi fries.

The CEO just hummed her agreement because she was too busy stripping ribs to the bone to pause and speak words.

"What even is this place, by the way?" she eventually asked seven ribs later, looking at the tree-dotted panorama to her right. "It's almost gorgeous as you are."

"First of all, thanks for the flattery," Kara started before pointing an accusing fry at the CEO, "but how don't you know about Seacrest Park?"

"Hey, I'm new to National City!" Lena protested and Kara scoffed derisively.

"You've been here for two years!"

"I don't get out much," the CEO justified, aiming for a placating tone as Kara frowned disapprovingly.

"No kidding!" the reporter admonished, shocked by Lena's ignorance. "Seacrest Park is like... a city landmark!"

"And now we've been introduced," the CEO laughed. "Better late than never, right?"

"I suppose so..." Kara grumbled through semi-pursed lips. "But -"

"I work too much, I know," Lena said, finishing the Kryptonian's sentence before leaning over to steal a bite of her burrito.

"Oi!" Kara yelped once she noticed what was happening, pulling her food towards herself and slapping a protective arm down in front of it.

"Oh I'm sorry," Lena said, not sounding sorry at all. "Did you mind?"

"If you were anyone else you'd be in big trouble," the reporter replied, swiping one of Lena's fries as revenge, "but I'll make an exception for you."

"Aww, I'm touched," Lena said with exaggerated gratitude before her voice took on a gravelly edge that instantly caught Kara's attention.

"Although... I don't mind getting in trouble on occasion."

That's when Kara remembered why eating with Lena was a bad idea. It took a great deal of effort to chew and swallow the morsel of deep fried potato she had in her mouth without making a fool of herself while the CEO boldly grabbed the burrito and stole a cheeky second bite.

"You're incorrigible," Kara laughed once she could think through the haze of sexual innuendo clouding her brain.

"That's how you like me."

"So I'm a tease and you're incorrigible?"

"I think that sounds about right," Lena agreed, wiping her hands on a napkin as Kara sadly devoured the last corner of her burrito. "Thank you for lunch though, that was delicious."

"I know..." Kara sighed as she stared mournfully at the spot her burrito previously occupied. It was almost like she was grieving.

"Where to now?" Lena asked brightly, attempting to rescue the reporter from her vague malaise. "Personally, I'm very ready for this surprise. You know I'm not a patient woman."

"You don't give yourself enough credit," Kara chuckled, finally looking up from the table. "But yes, the wait is nearly over."

"Thank god!"

* * *

Kara refused to give Lena any hints about where they were going as she lead her out through the car park, no matter how hard the CEO wheedled.

"We're nearly there, what's the harm in telling me?"

"We're nearly there, so what's the harm in waiting?"

"I don't want to."

"You're not four, you'll survive."

"What about twenty questions?"

"Nope!"

"Why not?"

"Because I know how compulsively competitive you get."

"I'm not compulsively competitive."

"You forget I've seen you at game night."

"What if I made Snapper give you that corruption story you wanted?"

"You would never. I seem to recall that appalling nepotism isn't your style."

"Technically, it wouldn't be nepotism. More of an unscrupulous quid pro quo."

"Well it would be unethical regardless and surely your morals matter more than waiting ten minutes."

"I'm genuinely not sure."

"I don't believe you."

The friendly debate continued all the way down the block until they turned down a slightly dingy alley between a pizza parlour and a pawn shop.

"It's not another karaoke bar is it?" Lena asked apprehensively as she squinted ahead to try to pick clues out of the shadows.

"It isn't," Kara laughed as she lead Lena between towering brick walls, towards their destination, "but that is an excellent idea."

"Oh really?"

"Mhmm."

Before Lena could quiz the reporter further, they popped out of the alley into dazzling sunlight and the CEO felt a little stunned by the abrupt brightness.

"Christ, I should've brought sunglasses."

"Don't worry," Kara assured her as she wrapped a hand around Lena's upper arm to tug her along the sidewalk, "you won't need them where we're going."

"Which is where, exactly?"

"You'll find out in two minutes!"

"Gah!"

* * *

 **I have the other half of this essentially fully written, I just want to edit it a bit, so that should be up in a few days.**

 **Happy New Year to everyone who's having new year this week - may your 2018 be better than 2017.**


	9. Smashtastic

**A/N: So I wanted to give this one more read through before I posted it but it turns out I actually can't be bothered so sorry for any mistakes and here it is**

* * *

Two minutes was actually three minutes and they passed like treacle as curiosity ate away at Lena's whirring brain but eventually she found herself standing outside...

"An arcade?"

"Yes, but no," Kara replied, which did little to alleviate Lena's confusion. "Inside."

Lena had never actually stepped foot in an arcade before and it was a sensory experience that she wasn't prepared for. When the CEO followed Kara into the building, she found herself assaulted by a virtual cacophony of bings and bongs, dings and beeps, honks and groans, and cheers and chatter. Her head swivelled from side to side, taking in the sights and sounds and smells of so many (primarily male) youth engrossed in gaming while Kara abandoned her near the door to go purchase a mystery ticket from the bored-looking student at the till.

It was actually fascinating, Lena thought, as she trailed behind the Kryptonian who was now marching purposefully to the back of the room. Kara then pushed through a door which took them to a far more subdued area with the entrance to a small bowling alley on the left and on the right...

"Smash Palace?"

The words blinked at Lena on a gaudy neon sign, clearly old or poorly maintained if the lack of light in the M was anything to go by.

"Yup," Kara confirmed, confidently grabbing Lena's hand to pull the befuddled CEO inside the slightly rundown space. Lena's eyes scanned along the rows of plates and other crockery that lined the back wall as she put two and two together even before the reporter launched into her explanation.

"Alex used to bring me here before I was Supergirl," Kara whispered conspiratorially, leaning close to the CEO's ear and looking around furtively as though someone might overhear her. "Breaking things helped me manage my strength when I was frustrated."

"You're good at breaking things," Lena replied after Kara had dropped her hand to feed the tickets into what appeared to be a ball machine and the reporter released some kind of strangled squeak.

"I'm sorry about the elevator, okay!"

"It's fine," Lena assured her with a chuckle. "I'm just teasing. And anyway, you're paying back the repairs one lunch at a time."

"Is that why you agreed to come out with me, huh?" Kara asked as she collected a ball from the chute and bounced it from one hand to the other. "To secure reparations for all the damage I've done to your property?"

"No," Lena said, shuffling forward imperceptibly as she wrestled with her substantial urge snog the reporter right then and there.

"Good," Kara replied, blatantly staring at Lena's lips before breaking the CEO's trance by suddenly waving a ball in her face. "Now smash a plate!"

"Smash a plate?"

"Yes. Smash a plate. This is Smash Palace after all."

Lena reached out to tentatively grasp the surprisingly heavy ball and turned it over between her fingers as she processed the instruction.

"So I just..."

"Chuck the ball and smash a plate, yes."

"I suppose I can do that..." Lena said slowly, a little like Kara had just told her to flip the bird at her biggest investor. Recreational plate smashing was completely counter to her deeply ingrained Luthor sensibilities but then Kara was looking at her with those entreatingly blue eyes and Lena started to think that maybe it was the best idea she'd ever heard.

"Seriously," the reporter insisted. "Imagine Carlton Hemings' face on one of those plates and tell me it doesn't feel good to make him explode."

"You sell it well," Lena said as she set her sights on a dinner plate with obnoxious floral edging and circled her throwing arm to loosen her shoulder, trying to recall the pitching practice she did for that charity baseball match that one time. Kara watched on from near the ball machine as the CEO wound up and unleashed with surprising force, cracking the Carlton Hemings stand-in into seven different pieces before it loudly clattered to the floor.

Lena stood stock-still for a moment, fondly gazing at the destruction she'd wrought before dusting off her hands and turning calmly on her heel.

"You're wrong. That didn't feel good," she started clinically and Kara's heart dropped off the proverbial cliff until the CEO's mouth curled into a smile. "That felt bloody fantastic. Give me another."

The reporter laughed with relief as she pulled a second ball out of the chute and wordlessly handed it to Lena, who was already scanning the wall for her next target. Ten seconds later a tacky bald eagle mug was blown to smithereens and Lena was grinning from ear to ear.

"This is excellent! Why haven't I been doing it for years?"

"Uh, because before now you didn't have someone awesome to introduce you to the epicness of the Palace and you never leave your office for long enough to discover it on your own?" Kara replied as she snatched up a ball for herself and took her place behind the counter.

"A little harsh," Lena chuckled as she stepped back, fearing slightly for her safety, "but true."

The CEO winced when Kara whipped the ball at a plain white saucer but the Kryptonian had plenty of experience at not breaking Smash Palace itself. Sure, the saucer was obliterated and the back wall shook like there was an extremely localised earthquake, but there was no structural harm done.

"Alright, shove over," Lena said as she grabbed a ball while the ceramic dust literally settled and Kara chuckled at the CEO's enthusiasm.

"I've created a monster, haven't I?"

"Absolutely. I need to get one of these installed at CatCo."

"And maybe at my apartment too," Lena added before she joyfully shattered a willow-patterned teacup that reminded her a little of her mother.

The Kryptonian and the CEO traded shot for shot over the next several minutes until half the crockery was destroyed and there was a crack in one of shelves where Kara had got a little exuberant.

"You create far more carnage than I do," Lena said as she surveyed the scene in front of them, ever so slightly out of breath from the exertion. The plates she hit were fractured into multiple fragments but Kara's victims were closer to pulverised.

"Yeah well," the reporter started, hiking her shirt sleeves up to her shoulders before ostentatiously flexing her biceps, "you know."

"Mm, I do know," Lena agreed, transfixed by the muscles rippling in Kara's deceptively lithe arms.

A number of moments later, the CEO's eyes flicked up to Kara's face just in time to see the reporter lick her lip and adjust her glasses. Lena wouldn't have been able to resist her overwhelming desire to lean over and suck that lip between her own if it weren't for the deep, pained groan that Kara released out of nowhere.

Instead of kissing her, Lena ended up looking at the hero quizzically as Kara literally smacked herself in the forehead.

"What's wrong?" the CEO asked, mildly concerned even though she could probably guess what the problem was.

"Duty calls," Kara sighed dramatically as she threw her head back with exasperation, confirming Lena's suspicions.

"It's fine," Lena promised, laying a conciliatory hand on the Kryptonian's forearm but Kara just pouted at her.

"I don't wanna go."

"To quote a wise woman I know - you're not four, you'll survive."

Kara's pout only deepened and Lena laughed lightly at the tragedy of it all.

"I don't want you to go either," she said, glancing down as she ran her thumb along the inside of Kara's wrist. "But duty does call, and I do understand."

"Duty sucks," the reporter groaned, moving her hand to weave her fingers between Lena's.

"Only some of the time," the CEO countered and Kara rolled her eyes even as she tightened her grip on Lena's hand.

"Stop being so level-headed and reasonable," she said, dropping her head onto Lena's shoulder. "I'm trying to complain."

"Oh don't worry," Lena assured her, resting her cheek on the top of Kara's head, "I'm only level-headed and reasonable on the surface. Inside, I'm actually bitterly disappointed."

"That's better," Kara laughed before she realised what she said and blanched. "Not that I want you to be disappointed! And not that I'm happy you're not happy but I mean I am happy you're not happy because it would be sad if you were happy that I had to leave early because that would be a bad sign, right? And I want there to be good signs, not bad signs and-"

"Kara," Lena said firmly as she cut the reporter off and twisted around so she could stare her in the eye.

"Mm?"

"Please shut up."

"Oh..."

"And just kiss me already."

"Oh!"

After that, Kara didn't need telling twice. She leaned in and grazed her lips all too fleetingly against Lena's before the CEO pulled away and gave her an encouraging pat on the shoulder.

"Go save the world, Miss Zor-el."

"Fine," Kara huffed as she reluctantly turned to leave but she couldn't resist turning back to steal one more brief kiss before she made for the exit.

Kara was gone in the blink of an eye but Lena didn't instantly follow her out the door. Instead, she threw every single ball the machine would give her. When it cut her off and there was still crockery on the wall, she popped back out front to buy another ticket and she didn't call her driver until she was satisfied that every plate, cup and bowl in the palace was in pieces.

It was refreshing catharsis and when Lena got home in the late evening, she felt more relaxed than she had in at least weeks.

* * *

That night, the CEO was casually flicking through stock reports when there was a thud, followed by knocking on her living room windows which could only mean one thing, or rather, one person. When Lena slid the balcony door open, she didn't even get the chance to say hello before a bedraggled Supergirl was thunking her head against the doorframe.

"Sometimes I hate the DEO," she whined. "You know they made me debrief for an HOUR? How many times do they need me to explain that I had to break that fire hydrant?"

"Far more times than was fair, by the sounds of it," Lena offered sympathetically with a laugh bubbling in her throat as Kara gave her an extravagant 'I know, right' arm wave.

"I blame Alex," the Kryptonian said bitterly. "Just because she's miserable, she wants to make everybody else miserable too so she's not alone."

"Okay, Miss Conspiracy Theorist," Lena chuckled as Kara huffed and gently kicked the deck. "Do you want to come in?"

"I shouldn't..."

"But?"

"I will."

Lena smiled at that and stepped out of the way, pointing invitingly at her lounge as Kara squelched inside. The reporter nearly collapsed onto Lena's stupidly expensive couch (that was so comfortable it almost justified the price tag), but then she remembered the state of her suit.

"Ah," she started uncertainly, eyes flicking between her own front and the CEO. "I'm wet."

Lena's eyes blew wide at the innuendo as she snorted and had to clamp a hand over her mouth. She stayed frozen in that position for several long seconds until she pulled herself together enough to respond reasonably.

"I can... um... see that," she finally managed as Kara blushed, having clued in to exactly what she said.

"If you're going to stay for a while," the CEO continued, trying to bring a sense of practicality to the moment, "feel free to raid my closet for some dry clothes."

"Yeah... I might do that..." Kara mumbled and Lena was entertained by the dissonance between Supergirl's current demeanour and her typical behaviour as the Kryptonian ran an awkward hand through her damp hair. "Your room is second on the left down the hall, right?"

"You got it," Lena replied and Kara turned to traipse towards the hallway before the CEO called after her.

"Should I assume you're hungry?"

"Always!" Kara shouted back.

What a surprise.

* * *

"You weren't kidding about the joke shirts huh?" Kara asked liltingly as she re-entered the lounge so quietly that Lena got a fright when she spoke.

"I wasn't, no," the CEO laughed as the adrenaline drained from her system and Kara stretched out the front of her black _I make horrible science puns but only periodically_ tee.

"And you own plaid shorts?" the Kryptonian continued, obviously amused.

"You really had a good look around didn't you?" Lena said, corroborating the accusation with her lack of denial. Kara snickered in response, entertained by something she hadn't spoken out loud yet, but she didn't leave Lena hanging for long.

"If only I'd checked the back of your closet sooner," she began brightly, flopping on the couch next to the CEO whose quizzical eyebrow was perched high upon her forehead. "Even I might've clicked that you're gay."

"What that pun deliberate?" Lena inquired with a smile and a whiff of laughter as she crossed her right leg over her left. "Or..."

"Happy accident, actually," Kara replied before she spotted the plate on the coffee table. "Ooh! Is that salmon?"

"No, it's tofu," Lena said dryly and her delivery was so deadpan that Kara briefly worried that tofalmon was the new tofurkey until the CEO cracked.

"Of course it's salmon! I had leftovers from dinner. And by the way, tofu definitely doesn't come in that colour."

Lena served up the explanation so casually that Kara never would've guessed that the CEO had deliberately cooked too much dinner in the hopes that she would drop by.

"Yeah I thought that, but I didn't know for sure," the reporter rejoined as she pulled the plate towards herself and ungracefully slipped onto the floor so she could use the coffee table like a regular table. "I don't have the most tofu experience."

"I plan to change that," Lena said in a tone that tried to engender enthusiasm but instead just came across as a threat, at least in Kara's interpretation.

"Oh no no no, you don't need to do that."

"Oh but I do. You're really missing out."

"I'm really not."

"I'll settle on agreeing to disagree for now, but we are revisiting this at a later date," Lena promised as Kara tucked into her food.

"O'course we ahrr," the reporter replied around a huge mouthful of fish and Lena just laughed, relaxing back into the couch cushions to watch the spectacle of Kara inhaling a meal.

* * *

"I'm sorry for skipping out on our date," Kara said once her plate was clean, and Lena fixed her with an almost scolding look.

"I told you it's fine. You don't need to worry. I do get it," she said, grabbing Kara's dishes and whisking them away to the kitchen as the Kryptonian resettled on the couch to rest and digest.

"And anyway, you're here now. Although..." Lena continued as she dropped the plate into the dishwasher and caught sight of the time on the oven, "you probably should get going."

"Mm, probably," Kara agreed reluctantly as Lena walked back across the lounge.

"But you are already basically in pyjamas..."

"And my suit is probably still wet..."

"And it's too late to bother with a cab..."

"And I shouldn't fly like this."

"No definitely not."

"So I guess it would make more sense if I just..."

"Stayed?"

"Exactly."

"It's just the most practical option," Lena said as she took a seat next to Kara on the couch.

"And we're all about practicality," the reporter replied, adeptly maintaining their charade as Lena kicked her feet up on the coffee table.

"Exactly! So, since you're staying, want to tell me about why you had to break that fire hydrant?"

"Only if you promise not to interrogate me about it afterwards."

"That I can definitely promise."

The pair ended up talking deep into the wee hours of the morning, until they finally crashed off to sleep sometime after midnight for their second sleepover in as many days.

* * *

Sleepovers actually became a regular occurrence over the next four weeks, perhaps because the practical thing about the CEO's super king was that Kara could starfish to her heart's delight without kicking Lena out of bed. They happened so often that Kara started keeping a spare supersuit at Lena's apartment and there was one week where they spent more nights together than apart.

(Those sleepovers also became not-only-sleeping-overs, for which Lena's giant bed had a number of other practical benefits.)

When Kara awoke to Lena's bare back after one such night, she stared for a minute before running her finger down the CEO's spine, reveling in the fact that she just could. She spent a while painting lazy patterns on the pale expanse of skin in front of her before Lena's breathing changed and she blearily joined Kara in consciousness.

"Good morning gorgeous," the reporter murmured into Lena's back before she pressed a kiss between her shoulder blades and the CEO hummed happily before she croaked "g'mornin'" in response. Kara had to drop another kiss onto Lena's shoulder for that because the Irish lilt that slipped into her voice first thing in the morning was adorable.

The pair lapsed into silence after that as Kara resumed her languid caresses that rendered Lena too comfortable to bother with talking until the Kryptonian piped up with a question that had been nibbling at the corners of her mind almost since their first date.

"What are we doing here?"

"I would've thought that was quite obvious," Lena replied, the bite of her sarcasm neutered by a tone that was still rough from sleep.

"No, like what are we?" Kara elaborated as she shifted to sit up and clutched the sheets over her chest. "What is this?"

At that, Lena rolled over and she found the reporter's modesty protecting move highly amusing given what they'd been up to the previous evening. The CEO stared appraisingly as she considered her reply, taking in the mussed blonde hair that formed a halo around Kara's head where it was beautifully back-lit by early morning sunlight.

"You're asking if we're girlfriends," she finally alleged, a sly grin slipping onto her lips.

Kara went to adjust her glasses but they were actually on Lena's bedside table instead of on her face so she ended up awkwardly scratching her cheek instead. That didn't help her mild embarrassment as she stared at her knees and mumbled, "yes..?"

"Well," Lena started blithely, propping herself up on her elbow as Kara kept avoiding her gaze, "I'm certainly not seeing anybody else, nor am I interested in seeing anybody else."

"Neither," the reporter replied quickly, flicking her hope-filled eyes up to Lena's.

"Well that settles it then," the CEO suggested but Kara couldn't resist clarifying, partly because she wanted to hear Lena actually say it.

"Girlfriends?"

"Girlfriends," Lena agreed and Kara happily flopped down onto the mattress, dragging the CEO on top of her as she went.

The reporter was about to yank Lena into a kiss when the Luthor killed the mood with a hint of a smirk and "Alex might not take it well."

"What?!" Kara yelped as she shot bolt upright, sending Lena flying slightly in the process. "Why?!"

"Fraternising with her monopoly nemesis?" the CEO teased from her position splayed across the bed. "Isn't that a betrayal of the sister code?"

Kara stared, frozen by shock, for a long moment before she grabbed a pillow and whacked it viciously into the side of her laughing newly-confirmed girlfriend.

"You had me worried!" she growled as the CEO kept snickering.

"Oops?" Lena offered with feigned innocence and Kara rolled her eyes as she prodded the other woman with her foot.

"You're an idiot."

"Yes," Lena agreed like it was the most obvious thing in the world, "but I'm your idiot."

"Yes you are," Kara laughed as she lay back down for the second time in two minutes, "now shut up and kiss me."

"Hmm... I might be an idiot but I think I can do that," the CEO murmured the second before their lips met and all thoughts of talking flew out the window.

The whole girlfriend gig was pretty sweet.

(And orgasmic.)

Both the Luthor and the Super could happily get used to it.

* * *

 **I'm going on holiday tomorrow for a week-ish so I won't be writing much but when I get back I'm going to finish pulling together the epilogue and then this story in d-o-n-e done**


End file.
